HF Retro Game of the Year - 2000 - Diablo II Wins!

[The Crypto Guy]

CS gets 2nd place

 

[NyQuil]

I played quite a few of those.

-HOMM3
-Unreal Tournament
-Quake 3: Arena
-Planescape Torment
-SimCity 3000
-Homeworld

Despite every reviewer orgasming over PS:T I'd probably go HOMM3 as well.

It was the best one of the series and I must have sunk god knows how many numbers of hours into that game.

I liked PS:T but it's a game you can only play once really to enjoy it IMO. BG2 was better from a replayability point of view IMO.

UT and Q3 are a toss-up. I played both pretty evenly.

SC 3000 was a very good game but the ground had been covered adequately in previous iterations.

I liked Homeworld but it was a pretty one-dimensional game at heart.

 

[Teemu]

Harvest Moon 64 was so good that some guy basically just recreated it almost 20 years later and sold over 3 million copies.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Donkey kong 64 for the next one!

 

[RandV]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 would easily get my vote from that list.

I've been eagerly the 98 poll to see how badly Starcraft crushes all the other games.

'99 is kind of lacklustre compared to '98.

When I got a hold of it a few years later I played a lot of HoMM3, but playing it again recently off of GoG I don't have a problem playing older games but I found it to have some significant flaws in the pacing and didn't get very far. It's also kind of sad that in the two decades since and with multiple attempts developers haven't been able to make an HoMM game that can beat 3.

Either way from the prospective list AoE 2 would have to be my pick. Still found some flaws in it when playing the HD version again, but a bit more understandable as it's all in the unit collision/pathfinding and they didn't have the CPU power to handle that back then and was common in the genre.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

'99 is kind of lacklustre compared to '98.

When I got a hold of it a few years later I played a lot of HoMM3, but playing it again recently off of GoG I don't have a problem playing older games but I found it to have some significant flaws in the pacing and didn't get very far. It's also kind of sad that in the two decades since and with multiple attempts developers haven't been able to make an HoMM game that can beat 3.

Either way from the prospective list AoE 2 would have to be my pick. Still found some flaws in it when playing the HD version again, but a bit more understandable as it's all in the unit collision/pathfinding and they didn't have the CPU power to handle that back then and was common in the genre.

What do you mean didn't get far? I didn't think people actually played the campaign.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

My picks for '99

- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
- WWF Attitude
- Grand Theft Auto 2

 

[Mount Suribachi]

2 standout games for me in 1999

Planescape: Torment, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which as everyone knows is the greatest Civ game of all time.

 

[NyQuil]

2 standout games for me in 1999

Planescape: Torment, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which as everyone knows is the greatest Civ game of all time.

Great game.

Still play it from time to time today.

The unit creation metric still hasn't been equalled, and the variety of playstyles allowed for a lot of creativity.

f*** Yang though. I'd play as him sometimes just so I wouldn't have to play against him.

It was rare to see non-expansionist factions (e.g. Morganites, University) do particularly well under the AI.

 

[NyQuil]

What do you mean didn't get far? I didn't think people actually played the campaign.

It was fun bringing your heroes through into the next scenario.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Donkey kong 64 for the next one!

Harvest Moon 64 was so good that some guy basically just recreated it almost 20 years later and sold over 3 million copies.

Stardew Valley was based more off of Back to Nature, the following Harvest Moon game on PlayStation. That said, Harvest Moon 64 was my introduction to the series, and one of few N64 games that I genuinely loved.


RollerCoaster Tycoon ftw. Had Alpha Centauri or System Shock 2 came out a few years later I would have been obsessed with them, but I was younger and lucky our piece of shit first computer could even run RCT, so they're sadly relegated to blind spots.

Soulcaliber definitely deserves a nod.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Stardew Valley was based more off of Back to Nature, the following Harvest Moon game on PlayStation. That said, Harvest Moon 64 was my introduction to the series, and one of few N64 games that I genuinely loved.


RollerCoaster Tycoon ftw. Had Alpha Centauri or System Shock 2 came out a few years later I would have been obsessed with them, but I was younger and lucky our piece of **** first computer could even run RCT, so they're sadly relegated to blind spots.

Soulcaliber definitely deserves a nod.

Haha i loved Donkey kong back the the day! Shockingly i have no idea how i never heard of or played Harvest Moon as a kid...i feel like i would have absolutely loved that game

 

[Mount Suribachi]

The unit creation metric still hasn't been equalled, and the variety of playstyles allowed for a lot of creativity.

**** Yang though. I'd play as him sometimes just so I wouldn't have to play against him.

Yep. I think is one of the best AI factions ever in a Civ game in that the way he was designed was perfectly designed to take advantage of the AI's limitations. With his ICS, perimeter defence in every base, bonus to production, and ability to control happiness coupled with his aggressive stance it meant he was a pain in the players ass every game

It was rare to see non-expansionist factions (e.g. Morganites, University) do particularly well under the AI.

Lal was my favourite to play - diplomatic victory suits my builder style. The Morganites were best as a human player if you went all in, full on rape-the-planet mode. They could generate so much damn gold you could do almost anything you wanted. Loved playing the Gaians as well, go full green and then send endless swarms of mind worms to overwhelm your enemies - once you got to Locusts of Chiron, it was game over.

 

[NyQuil]

Yep. I think is one of the best AI factions ever in a Civ game in that the way he was designed was perfectly designed to take advantage of the AI's limitations. With his ICS, perimeter defence in every base, bonus to production, and ability to control happiness coupled with his aggressive stance it meant he was a pain in the players ass every game.

Yeah, I can't remember too many games where he was knocked out unless I did it.

He was like the Klackons in Master of Orion 2.

Lal was my favourite to play - diplomatic victory suits my builder style. The Morganites were best as a human player if you went all in, full on rape-the-planet mode. They could generate so much damn gold you could do almost anything you wanted. Loved playing the Gaians as well, go full green and then send endless swarms of mind worms to overwhelm your enemies - once you got to Locusts of Chiron, it was game over.

I find as a player I could dominate with most of the factions, using their strengths better than my opponents. University and Morganites were great fun as a player, even if the AI sucked with them.

However, I was never a big fan of Santiago and the Spartan Federation. I found a good economy was usually better for a good army than military bonuses. I don't think I ever really gave the Fundamentalists much of a shot either. Apparently they weren't really meant to be a player faction.

I used to play very anti-planet at first, but soon came around to playing Gaians and Green and basically recruiting free mindworms all over the place. It was like having a spare army at your fingertips and you never had to worry about Fungicide Formers.

Did you try any of the Crossfire factions? I was sort of unimpressed in that they didn't add a lot of variety aside from the OP alien factions. For example, they had a more techy tech faction, and a more Green green faction, and a more labour labour faction.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings should be a option for 1999 and it would get my vote.

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

2 standout games for me in 1999

Planescape: Torment, and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which as everyone knows is the greatest Civ game of all time.

Please don't go

The drones need you

They look up to you

 

[Pilky01]

Here is my list....

-Super Smash Bros
-Pokemon Snap
-RollerCoaster Tycoon
-Beetle Adventure Racing
-Driver
-Mario Golf
-Tony Hawk's Pro Skater
-Syphon Filter
-Gran Turismo 2
-NFL 2K
- Sonic Adventure
-Need for Speed: High Stakes
-NFL Blitz 2000

Top 5 (as of this moment)

5. NFL Blitz 2000
4. Rollercoaster Tycoon
3. Gran Turismo 2
2. NFL 2K
1. Super Smash Bros

Hell of a year for gaming. Still vividly remember playing Driver (and being blown away by the cinematic action!) while listening/watching Woodstock 99.

 

[RandV]

What do you mean didn't get far? I didn't think people actually played the campaign.

Yes I'm talking about the campaign, why wouldn't you play the campaign? And what I was talking about here is there's no sense of progression, like you don't start with lower tier units and add depth as the game moves along, rather it's all available right from the start. I could live with that but worse is that each level inevitably comes down to the AI attacking you with one big army. You win that fight and the rest of the map is just mop up, you lose and you may as well start over.

I know the custom maps can be fun to but my most recent play through I got frustrated with that latter part early on and didn't get around to them. As it is I have a better time playing the more recent Kings Bounty or Age of Wonders (II, haven't really gotten into III) games.

 

[MetalheadPenguinsFan]

"Driver" pissed me off because I never did beat that stupid parking garage tutorial thing at the beginning of the game.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Did you try any of the Crossfire factions? I was sort of unimpressed in that they didn't add a lot of variety aside from the OP alien factions. For example, they had a more techy tech faction, and a more Green green faction, and a more labour labour faction.

I did, but I often went back to vanilla SMAC for the reasons you say. The alien factions were OP and seemed to be there just to provide a challenge for the player and none of the new human factions were particularly memorable. If I played SMAX I would select pairs of factions to form natural alliances, so Cyborgs + University, Gaians + Planet Cult.

And we haven't even talked about the plot, the tech quotes, the secret project videos, the diplomacy that was 10 years ahead of its time......so much to love about this game.

 

[NyQuil]

And we haven't even talked about the plot, the tech quotes, the secret project videos, the diplomacy that was 10 years ahead of its time......so much to love about this game.

It's funny, I had thought that they were all designed for the game but then I actually saw the film that most of them were drawn from.

Baraka (film) - Wikipedia

 

[crowi]

Voting Heroes 3 in '99 too. I only found that series in like 2009-2010. That game is such a gem.

 

[SniperHF]

Ooookay, 1999 list:

Age of Empires II

EverQuest

Heroes of Might and Magic III

Planescape: Torment

Quake III Arena

Rollercoaster Tycoon

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

Silent Hill

SoulCalibur

Super Smash Bros.

System Shock 2

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Unreal Tournament

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Other Potentials:

Driver

Final Fantasy VIII

Gran Turismo 2

Grandia

Homeworld

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

Mario Golf

Mario Party

Medal of Honor

Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Syphon Filter

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

What should stay, go , good enough?

Everquest was a big deal and an important historical game but I'm not sure it has many fans around here, could be wrong.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

I never played Everquest, but as you say it's a historically significant game - the first successful no-subscription MMO I believe?

 

[Desdichado93]

Games that I would like on the list:

Age of Empires II
Rollercoaster Tycoon
SWAT 3: Close Quarters Battle
Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance

Don't care about the rest