1990s in video games
Notable games released in the 1990s included Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Tekken 3, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Final Fantasy VII, Unreal Tournament, Star Fox, Half-Life, Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario 64, Pokémon Red and Blue, NBA Jam, Daytona USA, GoldenEye 007, System Shock 2, Civilization, Ridge Racer, Sonic Adventure, Gran Turismo, Super Mario Kart, Pokémon Gold and Silver, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid, Silent Hill, Dead or Alive 2, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro The Dragon, Fallout, Metal Gear Solid, Diablo, Virtua Fighter, Tomb Raider, Sega Rally Championship, Wing Commander, Super Smash Bros, Secret of Mana, Thief: The Dark Project, Age of Empires, Nights into Dreams, Panzer Dragoon, Gunstar Heroes, EverQuest, Chrono Trigger, Battletoads, Worms, Myst, Micro Machines, Streets of Rage 2, Baldur's Gate, Donkey Kong Country, Wipeout, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Lemmings, EarthBound, StarCraft, Banjo-Kazooie, PaRappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Soulcalibur, Command & Conquer, and Dance Dance Revolution.
The fourth generation also was the first time compact discs were considered a viable port for video game retail sales with the CD-i.
[citation needed] The Nintendo 64 (1996), PlayStation 1 (1994), Sega Saturn (1994), and Atari Jaguar (1993) are considered to be the big four gaming systems of this generation.
Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series became the first video game sex symbol[citation needed], becoming a recognizable figure in the entertainment industry throughout the late 1990s.
On personal computers, id Software's Doom (1993) is widely credited as the origin of modern first-person shooter (FPS) video games.
Nearly every system released in the mid-late 1990s began to move to the new CD-ROM technology, with the Nintendo 64 being the last major home video game console to use ROM cartridges.
Also appealing to publishers was the fact that CDs could be produced at significantly less expense and with more flexibility (it was easy to change production to meet demand), and they were able to pass the lower costs onto consumers.
As games grew more complex in content, sound, and graphics, the CD proved more than capable of providing enough space for the extra data.
This became the standard for video game consoles until it was replaced by the use of hard drives and built-in flash memory during the seventh generation in the late first decade of the 21st century.
The Super NES controller introduced a more rounded dog-bone like design and added two more face buttons, "X" and "Y", arranging the four in a diamond formation.
[18] SNK released Fatal Fury: King of Fighters a few months later,[19] adding a two-plane system where characters could step into the foreground or background.
Nevertheless, Street Fighter II remained the most popular,[20] spawning a special Champion Edition that improved game balance and allowed players to use additional characters.
[24][25] Tecmo's Dead or Alive (released in 1996 in Japanese arcades and 1998 on the PlayStation) spawned a long-running franchise, known for its fast-paced control system and innovative counterattacks.
Sonic featured large fields that scrolled effortlessly in all directions, as well as all manner of uneven terrain, curved hills, and a complex physics system that allowed players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls.
A similar game also from Sega is Emergency Call Ambulance, with almost the same gameplay (pick up patient, drop off at hospital, as fast as possible).
Both games featured Zelda-like gameplay blended with genuine RPG elements, such as experience points, statistics-based equipment, and a magic-casting system.
Seiken Densetsu 2, also known as Secret of Mana, implemented an innovative multiplayer function, and further developed its combat with more diverse weaponry and spell-casting.
It was in the early 1990s that the console role-playing video game genre distinguished itself greatly from computer RPGs, with the Final Fantasy series playing an instrumental role.
[34][35] Final Fantasy IV (1991) was one of the first role-playing games to feature a complex, involving plot,[36] placing a much greater emphasis on character development and pioneering "the whole concept of dramatic storytelling in an RPG.
In the final years of the 90's, US companies Interplay (through developer Black Isle Studios) and Bioware published several roleplaying games with similar gameplay, which are considered milestone classics of the genre.
Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate were games with a Dungeons & Dragons license, while Interplay's Fallout was an unofficial successor to Wasteland from the 80's, and would be rebooted 10 years later to new critical acclaim.
Before the end of the decade, the evolution of the genre continued through "graphical MUDs" into the first massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs),[45] a term coined by Richard Garriott in 1997.
[46] That genre, as currently defined, began with Meridian 59 in 1995, but first truly came into its own with Ultima Online in 1997, a game that provided a core idea of what later MMORPGs would become, featuring a massive continent on which players could interact with others from around the world, fight mythical creatures, and cast spells.
[47] In 1990, Nintendo released and published the first tactical RPG, Fire Emblem: Ankoku Ryū to Hikari no Tsurugi for the Family Computer (or Famicom) in Japan, co-developed with Intelligent Systems.
Combining the basic console RPG concepts from games like Dragon Quest and simple turn-based strategy elements, Nintendo created a hit, which spawned many sequels and imitators.
Shining Force used even more console RPG elements than earlier games, allowing the player to walk around towns and talk to people and buy weapons.
[53] An alternative Metal Gear sequel named Snake's Revenge was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America and Europe instead, also in 1990.
[53] 1998 is seen as a turning point in gaming history because of the release of Metal Gear Solid, as well as Tenchu: Stealth Assassins and Thief: The Dark Project.
The increased power of the PlayStation console over previous platforms allowed for greater immersion in terms of both story and game environment.
[62] The control scheme in Resident Evil also became a staple of the genre, and future titles would imitate its challenge of rationing highly limited resources and items.
