The 1990s was a great decade for video gamers, whether on console or PC. Out of the fashion disaster that was the 90s, whole genres of games were born.
It gave us the first-person shooter, real-time strategy games, three generations of consoles, the analog stick, and saw online gaming come to consoles.
Ranking the titles from such an important period in the history of gaming is not trivial, so I used the aggregate scores from professional reviewers as a starting point.
Metacritic only runs from 1995, but GameRankings has the review scores of games released from 1990.
Top 20 games from the 1990s
The following table lists the top 20 games from 1990 to 1999, of which GameRankings has at least 10 reviews:
|
Rank
|
Title
|
Score
|
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time | 97.54% |
| 2 | SoulCalibur | 96.56% |
| 3 | Super Mario 64 | 96.41% |
| 4 | Tekken 3 | 95.80% |
| 5 | Chrono Trigger | 95.64% |
| 6 | Super Metroid | 95.50% |
| 7 | Gran Turismo | 94.95% |
| 8 | Wipeout XL | 94.75% |
| 9 | GoldenEye 007 | 94.70% |
| 10 | Half-Life | 94.02% |
| 11 | Final Fantasy III | 93.96% |
| 12 | Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater | 93.67% |
| 13 | Super Mario Kart | 93.60% |
| 14 | Unreal Tournament (1999) | 93.57% |
| 15 | Metal Gear Solid | 93.24% |
| 16 | Resident Evil 2 | 93.13% |
| 17 | Castlevania: Symphony of the Night | 93.03% |
| 18 | Grim Fandango | 92.97% |
| 19 | The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past | 92.87% |
| 20 | Starcraft | 92.85% |
There are a number of games that scored around 90%, but didn’t make it into the rankings, that deserve an honourable mention.
System Shock 2
Baldur’s Gate
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Planescape: Torment
Tomb Raider
Fallout
Diablo
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Except for Grim Fandango, I don’t really see any quest games. Some of my favourite games are quest games from the 90s. Everything from Sierra and Lucasarts were great.