By the early 90’s EA Sports was already dominate the world of sports video games with franchises like Madden, NHL and their various NBA titles. However the video game giants had yet to have much success on the other side of the pond, with their American based sports games not selling well in European markets. Continue reading
The team at Rare had already established themselves as marque video game developers by the mid 90’s. Previous titles like Battletoads, Knight Lore and Sabre Wulf had earned the company’s founders Tim and Chris Stamper critical acclaim. Not happy to rest on their laurels when Nintendo bought up a majority share in the company in 1994. The brothers saw it as a chance to take on one of Nintendo’s characters and innovate on the medium. Continue reading
Myst achieved many milestones and records when it was released in September of 1993. Not only was it a revolution in video game graphics, featuring ground breaking 3D visuals in an era that still relied heavily on 2D sprites. It also stood as a rare title to have a MacOS release prior to its porting onto other platforms. Continue reading
What started as a risky venture for a company still finding its feat in the industry would turn out to be standard bearer for the RPG genre. The Elder Scrolls series is now making the leap to the MMO scene to compete with the likes of Blizzard. The series has established its very own extensive back history and lore that rivals any other fantasy universe; however its initial development called for something far less ambitious. Continue reading
Although Wolfenstein 3D was the game that put id Software on the map, it was Doom that cemented their place within the industry. Doom followed in the footsteps of its predecessor but took the First Person Shooter genre to a whole new level. Continue reading
Very often cited as one of the earliest First Person 3D games, Wolfenstein 3D the title that defined an entirely new genre. Although it certainly helped popularize the First Person Shooter genre in the early 90’s, it was not the first attempt by video game developers to make 3D perspective game. Continue reading
As the console wars heated up between Nintendo and Sega in the early 90’s, Sega was lagging behind its main rival. Nintendo was dominating the market with its NES console hitting it big with gamers and the follow up SNES on its way. Continue reading
Civilization is a game that like many others in the strategy genre drew its inspiration and influence from the table top. Civilization the board game was released in the early 80’s with gameplay that would be familiar to any player of the later Sid Meier’s titles. Continue reading
The genre of simulation games and in particular management simulators owe a lot to the SimCity series. The original title in the series was released in October of 1989 and is now approaching its 25th anniversary. No mean feat for a game that struggled to win favour with many publishers at the time. Most of whom felt that the city management concept was to boring and unappealing to consumers. Continue reading
Electronic Arts has long been associated with the sports video game genre, one of the companies’ earliest games was the basketball title One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird. From there they had success with other sports games such as Earl Weaver Baseball and in 1988 they released the first game in the long running Madden franchise. Continue reading