Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy (1991): id Software Before the Guns
Two years before Wolfenstein 3D and three before Doom, id Software’s biggest release wasn’t a shooter at all — it […]
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Ski or Die (1990) Review — EA’s Winter Answer to Skate or Die
Five snow sports, one relentlessly attitude-heavy presentation, and a cast of characters who treat a ski resort like a skate
Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993): LucasArts’ Weirdest Road Trip
Sam is a dog. Max is some kind of hyperkinetic rabbity thing. Together, they’re the Freelance Police, and in 1993
Death Rally (1996): Remedy’s Debut, Long Before Max Payne
Before Max Payne, before Alan Wake, before Control, Remedy Entertainment made a top-down racing game where you shoot your opponents
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (1992): The Best Indy Game LucasArts Never Filmed
Most licensed movie tie-in games are disappointments, cranked out to hit a release date rather than to tell a good
Strife (1996): The Doom Engine’s Strangest, Best Detour
What do you get when you bolt a quest log and a reputation system onto Doom’s combat engine? Rogue Entertainment
Dark Forces (1995): The Star Wars Shooter That Out-Engineered Doom
Out-Building Doom, One Feature at a Time id Software’s Doom engine spawned countless imitators in the mid-90s, but Dark Forces
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996): Bethesda’s Impossibly Huge Gamble
Try to describe Daggerfall’s scale to someone who hasn’t played it and the numbers just sound made up: a procedurally
The Elder Scrolls: Arena (1994): The Free RPG That Started It All
Before Morrowind, before Oblivion, before Skyrim, there was a game that almost wasn’t an open-world RPG at all. The Elder
Keen Dreams (1991): The Commander Keen Game id Almost Forgot
Commander Keen fans tend to know the original trilogy and the Goodbye Galaxy games well. Fewer know there’s a strange
Dark Ages (1991): Apogee’s Medieval Detour From Sci-Fi Platforming
Most of Apogee’s early shareware output leaned sci-fi or cartoonish. Dark Ages, released in 1991, went a different direction entirely
Monuments of Mars (1991): George Broussard’s Free Sci-Fi Platformer
George Broussard would go on to co-create Duke Nukem and spend the better part of a decade on Duke Nukem