-Mortal Kombat 2 (Arcade) (this game was all about it's graphics/sound (a solid increase vs the first game) as i loved hearing the bridge fatality which is still easily the best bridge fatality of the entire series. but what it lacked was the faster pace of MK3/UMK3 (since those had the run button) which is why those games are ultimately better and the peak of the MK series. with that said... i know some people still prefer MK2 and in some ways, especially from a nostalgia standpoint, i can't blame em. i played this in the arcades back in 1994-1995 (memories with my cousin driving up on our bicycles with $0.25 hoping someone left another $0.25 in the machine at times so we could play (it was $0.50 per play) when we got desperate at times to play it). i missed the first game in the arcades though even though i did play it a little back in the day on consoles i think. but the first game is someone i like to first up on MAME arcade emulator once in a while as it's still fun in it's own way even though worse than MK2/MK3/UMK3 overall which are the only other 2D MK arcade versions released.)
-Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade) (just a quick note... i like abusing the 68% damage combo on the CPU with Kabal which is roundhouse/tornado dash and then his usual combo(LK,LK,HP,HP,D+HP, drop kick+fireball). that won't work on a human opponent though.)
-Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade) (it's nice we got the 2D MK series (MK1/MK2/MK3/UMK3) in arcade versions using MAME arcade emulator on the PC (using my X-Arcade joystick)
; i would have killed for arcade versions of these back in the 1990's as they are by far the best fighting games out there, especially MK3/UMK3 when playing against someone else. i used to play MK2/MK3/UMK3(mainly MK3/UMK3) as much as i could back around 1995-1997 in the arcades but was typically stuck with the weaker home versions on the consoles. after UMK3 the series fell off and never returned to MK3/UMK3's height. but the best out of the 3D MK games i would say is MK9 which was released in 2011. also, i see some people listing Mortal Kombat trilogy but that was never released in a proper arcade format so all we had is the watered down console versions, which while at the time were solid for me, i typically stick with MK3/UMK3 when i play nowadays which is basically superior to MKT even though it has less character to choose from.)
-Counter-Strike (PC) (it's the best multiplayer shooter by far in the long term as i played that quite heavily from the year 2000-2005(maybe a bit beyond this). it was released in 1999, the BETA stages, but i am pretty sure i never started playing til the year 2000. so even though it's official release in not until the year 2000, with v1.0, it's basically a 1990's game given the beta versions could be downloaded by the average person and those went back into 1999 into the early 2000's. i believe it was the later BETA stages when i started which i want to say BETA 7.)
-Super Mario 64 (N64) (NOTE:
forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-super-mario-64-hd-texture-pack-v1-4-2016-08-30 ; something people will like if they want to play Super Mario 64 on their PC with graphics more up to date (widescreen/higher res graphics etc) while still looking like the general Super Mario 64 game you remember on N64. i use my wireless XBox360 controller to play it on the PC with it being displayed on my TV @ 1080p. it's just a superior way to play the game.)
-DooM series (DooM/DooM2/Ultimate Doom etc) on PC. (while not the 1st first person shooter game it was the first good one. i remember running it on a old 486 CPU back in 1995 (with 8MB of RAM(for comparison today many computers have 4000-8000MB or so of RAM) and only a 428MB hard drive which i actually still have this hard drive and it still works as i recently ran DBAN on the drive to wipe it and it worked. it's a Seagate ST3491A which shows 428.1MB (i.e.
www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102711773 ; mine was in a Packard Bell PC)) which was our first computer as i would say computers never really went mainstream til about 1998-2000 so i had one about 3 years before they went mainstream.)
-Duke Nukem 3D (PC) (the main character helped make this one but in the end i tend to prefer DooM series overall)
-Wave Race 64 (N64) (i played this a lot back in the day. i still fire it up from time-to-time on a emulator on the PC etc.)
-GoldenEye (N64) (the last good shooter on a console as far as i am concerned as not long after this i got too used to the PC and could not go back as aiming with a mouse+keyboard combo is much more natural than using a analog stick to track something on screen which is a chore to do. i still like to praise this game to this day, especially for nostalgia sake, even though i doubt it's anywhere near as good as the memories i have of it playing against my cousin etc. also, i am sure this is one of the most popular N64 games.)
-NBA Jam (back then it was pretty much just consoles (Sega Genesis etc) but i can play the arcade version nowadays with MAME emulator for the PC
; you can see the overall feel/graphics are noticeably better in the arcade version vs the watered down consoles)
-Gran Turismo (PS1) (but once the Forza series came along (Forza series is safe to say it's my all around favorite racing game(s)) i dumped this series as Forza series is just all around better if you ask me for sim racers. i disable all assists to make it more fun/challenging on the Forza series. but i got to list Gran Turismo here as i remember that game/series sticking with me at the time until 2005 when Forza came along on the XBox and i could not go back to the Gran Turismo series.)
-Quake (there are not many times i clearly remember being WOW'ed by graphically but this is one of them as i remember getting a Diamond Monster 3D video card (i.e. 3DFX voodoo chipset(4MB)) (i still have this video card as i mostly keep it for nostalgia sake and it's pretty much the first good graphics cards for computers) and at first i was disappointed because i did not know initially that in order to get it to use the graphics card you needed to run it in OpenGL mode and once i stumbled into that i was WOW'ed as this was pretty much 1997 and at that time it was well ahead of the consoles of that day which are PS1/N64 basically. another time i remember being WOW'ed graphically was when the DooM3 alpha demo leaked in Nov 2002 but by the time the game was released in Aug 2004, while it's graphics were still high end at the time, it was not as far ahead graphically at that time vs other games out in 2004 as the gap was closed some so it lost some of it's WOW effect by then from a graphics standpoint. but in Nov 2002 it blew everything else away basically. i might as well list Quake II/Quake III here to as they were also 1990's shooter games.)
-Half-Life (PC)
i would assume there is some games that i forgot to mention but i would imagine i got the bulk of them that stuck with me.
also, ill be 38 years old later this year so i can remember the 1990's pretty well (i would have been a teenager from late 1992 through most of 1999) as figure anyone much younger than myself (say born late 1980's or more recently(they can't really claim 1990's and are more of the 2000's video game generation)) won't be able to legitimately claim being there in the 1990's (at least not much of it) with video games etc as i don't really count those who are kids back then being able to claim they where really there in the 1990's video game era during the 1990's.
p.s. i would have listed the Gameboy version of Tetris but that was June 1989 even though i was playing it in the early 1990's. my highest score on the original gameboy Tetris cartridge is... 362,588 which i got on July 18th 2010. i would imagine that score is better than most people.
side note: with that said... in terms of single player video game experience the peak for me is Mafia (2002) (on PC). i would have been 22, nearly 23, at the time of the games release. there is not many games i would label a masterpiece but this is one of the few, if not the only one. it's graphics were also quite strong in it's day even though by today's standards it will be a bit lacking but considering the game is nearly 15 years old it's graphics are still respectable in a way but the characters/voice acting are still strong which really carries the game and the gameplay which is more challenging. but still... i don't expect this to have the same impact today as it did back when it was new. it just left me with a solid feeling that i just don't get from video games and it takes movies to get. the popular Grand Theft Auto series can't touch Mafia/Mafia II (i have not played Mafia III but i expect that to be a step down from the first two games) as while the GTA games are good they don't have the lasting impact on me that Mafia/Mafia II, especially Mafia, did as i replayed Mafia quite a few times over the years since were as the GTA games i typically finish and forget. but one area i like Mafia over Mafia II is in terms of the shooting as in Mafia runs act more realistic with ammo in that say for example... if you got a Tommy Gun and fire off a handful of shots and reload your gun you will lose all of the ammo left in the 50 round drum which forces you to be more efficient with your ammo as if you first off a couple of shots and reload too often you could run out of ammo fast which forces you to manage your ammo use better unlike Mafia II (which is pretty much like all other modern games in this regard) where it acts like your typical shooter in that if you fire off a few shots and then reload your gun it only deducts 3 shots from your reserve ammo and wastes nothing (basically you get a bit more challenge in Mafia because outside of the general game you can't just get into a habit of reloading quickly and need to calculate how low you want to run your ammo in your gun before reloading as if you wait too long you could risk running out of ammo during a time you really don't want to run out as the delay in reloading could cost you so what i usually do, especially with Tommy Gun, is run the ammo pretty low in it's 50 round drum and reload when it starts to get under 10 shots left etc. but since i replayed Mafia quite a bit over the years i can generally know when i can spray the tommy gun (i.e. get a little more trigger happy) vs when to conserve a bit etc.
also, since i was on the topic of Mafia and the like... i may consider upgrading my video card etc so i can play Mafia III (along with GTA5/Hitman etc) as the last time i upgraded my video card was in the year 2010 so i could play Mafia II and i am still on that video card (i.e. Radeon 5670 512MB) which is flat out outdated for today's standards as i would have to upgrade that at the very least to play modern games and even then my CPU will likely need to be upgraded but i might be able to squeak by without a CPU upgrade (i had my CPU for 5 years this month (i.e. i3-2120)). but i am still considering if i am going to do it or not as what i might do is upgrade the video card (was thinking about a 'Geforce GTX 1060 6GB' or something along these lines) and then once i get enough cash build a new PC and then move that new video card into the new PC and put my current video card back into my current PC. but i can upgrade my CPU to one that will be sufficient to run Mafia III and basically all other modern games for around $100 but then again it's a 3rd gen CPU where as the current generation is 7th gen and noticeably faster which is why i would rather not spend more $$$ into a CPU upgrade on my current motherboard and put that towards the current gen Kaby Lake i5 CPU's or something along these lines. but ill stop babbling for now