1998 vs 2015 (before the games have come)

Each time a highly anticipated game was shoved out of 2014 and announced for 2015, the more I got the feeling that a year comparable or potentially greater than 1998 is ahead. That's why I'd like to compare what 1998 had to offer and what is and might be coming up in 2015.

Below, for 1998, I'll list the mix of games mentioned in this Gamespot article and others that show up on google rather than trying to come up with a list myself. The reason being that I wasn't super aware of what was going on in the gaming world in 1998. I had a PS1, but I played games like Spyro rather than Metal Gear solid. My friend had an N64 so I was aware of Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie, but there are plenty of blank spaces.

Here's the list (feel free to mention other games from '98 that you feel strongly about):

• Half-Life
• The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
• Banjo-Kazooie
• StarCraft & Brood War
• Grim Fandango
• Thief: The Dark Project
• Baldur's Gate
• Pokemon Red & Pokemon Blue
• Metal Gear Solid
• Soulcalibur
• Xenogears
• Suikoden II

Now I'll list games slated for 2015 I'm interested in:

• Bloodborne (March 24th)
• Ori and the Blind Forrest (Q1)
• Witcher 3 (May 19th)
• Batman Arkham Knight (June 2nd)
• Splatoon (Q2)
• Uncharted 4 (All Uncharted games have been Oct or Nov)
• Metal Gear Solid V (TBA)
• Final Fantasy XV (TBA)
• Persona 5 (TBA)
• Zelda Wii U (TBA)
• Star Fox Wii U (before Zelda)
• Xenoblade Chronicles X (TBA)
• Hyper Light Drifter (TBA)
• No Man's Sky (TBA)

Also a couple of games not officially announced as 2015 releases, but I think are likely to be:

• Rime
• Scalebound? Maybe?
• Last Guardian baby!

Again, feel free to correct me on any dates I got wrong and add games you believe will come out in 2015.

2015 is looking crazy and we still have E3. Of course, we don't know if everything on this list will be hitting shelves before the year ends. It'll be interesting to see another thread pop up after all is said and done (either by me or someone else here) that goes over the hits and misses of the year and discusses 2015's eligibility as the best year for games.

You think it can do it?

2008 was one of my favorite years for gaming.

Burnout Paradise

Condemned 2

GTA IV

Rainbow Six Vegas 2

MGS 4

Fallout 3

Dead Space

Left 4 Dead

Mirrors Edge

Braid

Fable 2

Rock Band 2

Gears of War 2

I think 2015 has more games that appeal to less people than 98 or 08. Games like Persona, FF, Xenoblade are more niche than most. I do think 2015 will be the year we get our first jaw dropping, truly next hen experience on X1 and Ps4

Holy crap I didn't realize all those games came out in one year. Well to be honest by probability its very unlikely we get another year like that and its just lucky that they all finished their stuff at the same time then. They are basically all genres breakthrough that were untouched for like 4-5 years. Half-Life (FPS), Zelda(action/adventure), Starcraft(real time strategy), thief and MGS(stealth and story), Baldur's gate(RPG), Soul Caliber(fighting) and the rest. Honestly we get like one breakthrough a year at best... so repeating anything near that is basically impossible. The 2015 list is basically action and RPG games.

In so far as 1998 is carried by fantastic games and pure nostalgia, 2015 has zero chance to win in the mind of most video game pundits. Comparing years has always been dumb anyway. I prefer living in the present and looking forward to the future instead of wasting my time thinking about the past. I love me some old games. Deus Ex, mario games, final fantasy 6 are all fantastic but these, and other classics, certainly don't crack my top 10 of all time. Getting stuck with old ass games is a sure way to become a jaded ass. \rant

Also zelda isn't coming out this year. Deal with it.

Brood War is probably the best multiplayer game ever and like 3rd or 4th overall, but Ocarina and Half-Life are massively overrated. MGS is still good but Baldur's Gate aged like trash. This year is just Bloodborne/Witcher 3 which are probably going to be either good or ridiculously good. 2000 is Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, Final Fantasy IX, Tony Hawk 2, Tenchu 2, and Valkyrie Profile.

I agree , the games that came out in 98 were genre defining, and whilst 2015 does look like a great year they're all iterations on existing ip's generally.

No Man's Sky possibly (hopefully) being the exception.

How about we stop putting 1998 on a pedestal. It's basically just a meme at this point. It's as silly as asking "What is the Citizen Kane of video games???"

Also, none of the games you've listed for 2015 interest me. The main thing I'm interested in in The Witness, which will have to be amazing to top The Talos Principle.

It could be, depending on wether or not the AAA titles crash and burn like last year's.

Imo..

2001 (Halo MGS 2, GTA III,Devil May Cry, Max Payne all in the same year...)

2004

2007

1998

@adamwd: 2007 was better IMHO. You had Mass Effect, Bioshock, Crackdown, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Super Mario Galaxy, Uncharted, The Orange Box (Portal!), The Witcher, Metroid Prime 3, and God of War II. I'm sure there's a few other awesome games I missed. 2008 was a good encore, but 2007 was the main event.

I don't know if you should put up a year where none of the games have come out yet. You are basing your argument solely on the hype and marketing given to you by the companies who make the games. Half of these games could come out and be broken, or terrible.

1998 is held so dearly because most of the games on it proved to be huge innovations to gaming as a whole. Nobody knows what impact any of 2015's games will have, if any, because they aren't out yet.

I'd agree with others that 1998 isn't just about great games but games that pushed boundaries and did a lot of new things. There have been lots of great years to be a videogamer quality wise but few that have had a larger impact then 98.

@aegon: Where is FF Tactics brotha

Maybe that's why quite a few people are upset that I even tried to compare '98 with what 2015 can potentially produce.

I didn't experience a lot of the 1998 games first hand, so I don't have the nostalgia for them nor do I hold their "groundbreaking" work in particularly high regard. I'm just looking at which games look like they'll be a lot of fun to play, regardless if they're doing something never before seen. As an example, I played MGS 3, 4 and Ground Zeroes and MGS V looks like the most fun to play out of all the MGS games thus far. If I have a lot of fun with MGS V, that's all that matters to me. I don't think of whether it changed the industry more than MGS1, I only think about whether it's the better game.

But yeah, it might indeed be pointless. Might as well just enjoy the present.

And Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, R4 Ridge Racer Type 4, NHL 99 and GTA2.

2015 doesn't even come close on quantity. I doubt it'll come close on quality. It doesn't stand a chance at coming close on influence.

2015 looks damn good. My list is close to yours but I am also interested in "Execute Order 1886".

That's uh, all I got.

Hyper Light Drifter is among my most anticipated games. Samurai Gunn was made by a combat design master, so extremely interested to see what Beau pulls out for a bigger game.

Is this version 1.2, or 2.0 conversation? I swear this is a monthly post.

Quadrilateral Cowboy should be on that list too for this year.

But, as other people have said, it will be hard to be another 1998. I mean, we have some very close contenders with 2001 and 2007, but the amount of true, raw, classics will be hard to both surmount, as well as estimate until long after the year is done.

I'd say pretty much the entire run from 1992 to 2002 was fantastic. 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2001 all got as many great titles as 1998.

There aren't a lot of specific titles I'm looking forward to in 2015, but I'm happy that arena shooters, real time strategy games and space sims are having a resurgence (though the latter was maybe more of a 2014 thing, other than No Man's Sky, I don't know of any upcoming space sims for 2015).

I really hope someone will make a new proper Descent style game with decent multiplayer soon too. Geocore seems promising but seems too early to be finished this year.

1999 was no slouch in gaming history either (Silent Hill, Home World, Super Smash Bros., System Shock 2, Planetscape: Torment, Medal of Honor, Shenmue, The Longest Journey, Alpha Centauri, Tony Hawk Proskater, ChronoCross, Unreal Tournament)

I find it hard to judge a year as having true significance without a little time to see how the titles hold up. 2015 may become a great year, but I won't be able to judge its value until 2020.

Any 1998 list has to include Fallout 2 & Gran Turismo. Also Tenchu & Vigilante 8 were great, just not FO2 & GT great.

I dunno about 2015 matching 1998, but it's got to be better than last year.

I'm really excited about seeing what E3 brings this year, too. For some reason, I have a feeling that it's going to be a good one.

Rise of the Tomb Raider and Halo 5, those will push the year into best-ever territory along with your list.

Splatoon will end all other video games!

'98 was a one-off, there will never be a year like that again. The industry has changed too much for it to even be possible.

2014 was the first year where I listened to the GB GotY podcasts as soon as they were posted because I had literally played everything that they might spoil any ending or memorable moments for. That has never happened before for me.

100% agree. I'm seeing more and more people getting sour. I guess the major reason would be the fact that 30+yr old gamers - growing up, were used to huge changes in games every few years. Hence this is the reason why we see articles outlining specific, "game changing, games" in the industry that laid the groundwork for most of the games we have today.

I've found myself getting bored with everything that was coming out, and realized that I just needed to step back and take a break for a bit. I think only then, you can start to appreciate the newer stuff coming out.

Also, you can't compare a year past, with a year yet to come. It's just pure speculation vs. fact. It doesn't work.

1998 was the start of a bunch of amazing series, as well as the successful 3-D-ization of plenty of other series. There is no way any year can match that, really. 2015 is basically all sequels that will play very much like their predecessors. Compare that to what Ocarina of MGS did for their respective series, or Starcraft and Half-Life to their genres. Hell, even the Last Great Adventure Game (Grim Fandango) was part of '98's catalogue. In terms of historical significance alone, 1998 is nearly unmatched in terms of modern console/PC gaming.

That being said, I'm sure there will be a lot of great games in 2015; there always are. I'm especially excited about what Nintendo has in store for the Wii U.

1998 will never be beat because most of the games that defined that year were either the first or first in 3D in their respective franchise and inherently way more influential than any sequel could ever be.

I love how most of the 2015 games have a fat number after them, while only one '98 game does, and it's a 2. Everything's a sequel now.

I'll grant you that some parts of Half-Life haven't aged so well, but most of that game has and large chunks of it are still ridiculously fun to play. Barring that, the sheer influence that Half-Life had on FPS design is what makes it so great. Nobody else made FPS's like Half-Life at the time, I don't think you can really chalk it up as overrated when you compare it to its contemporaries. And the fact that it still stands up so well against modern shooters in terms of how believable the level design and world is speaks volumes to its quality.

Goddamn those jumping puzzles and the entire Xen level, though.

@believer258: Half Life is a good game it just doesn't hold up compared to something like Doom or Rise of the Triad or even Unreal Tournament.

2015 is reminding me of 2011: lots of cool looking sequels that ultimately were disappointing compared to superior previous entries. I've stopped having expectations for these types of things because the hype train can really stilt/mutilate your final impression.

Like, Uncharted 3 is a great game, but my expectations for it were so ridiculous, because of how much I loved Uncharted 2, and it ended up being really disappointing and I look back on it negatively... which is really unfortunate.

@fredchuckdave I totally disagree. I played HL1 for the first time like 4 years ago and it was revelatory. I even liked the ending, even though I think it's really dumb/kinda bad. The game is charming as fuck and it's hard to put down once you start it, even after all these years. Can't say doom does the same thing for me, but tis opinions.

I'll say this: Doom is a really important game that has a wide reaching influence, but I do not think it holds up at all.

Zelda, Witcher, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Rime, Hyper Light Drifer, Star Fox, No Man's Sky, Batman, Bloodborne, Xenoblade, The Witness, and Persona 5 are all prepped to be stellar games if they all make it out, but comparing years is a bit strange when it comes to releases for anything, not just video games. To me it makes sense to compare the way the year made you feel, but not so much the content to one another, it just gets really grey really fast.

I dunno man, nothing you listed from 2015 seems like it could beat 1998. It's really weird to compare, especially when you're looking at different generations.

I do think 2009 might be the best recent year (or at least last gen year) in video games. Here are the big releases, and some of the little ones that I also liked:

• Demon's Souls
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Assassin's Creed II
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Borderlands
• Halo 3: ODST
• Torchlight
• Infamous
• Resident Evil 5
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
• Red Faction: Guerrilla
• Street Fighter IV
• Zeno Clash
• Noby Noby Boy
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Trine
• Flower
• Dissidia: Final Fantasy
• Machinarium

'08, '10, and '12 were pretty fantastic too though. Whatever man, it's all great. Video games are cool.

Part of the reason for that is due to hindsight vs foresight. It's easy to predict that something like MGS V or Uncharted 4 will be stand-outs due to their long running history, whereas there may be undiscovered gems that are missing that kind of fanfare and as such are flying under most people's radars right now. When you look back at 98', we know exactly what shook the world, but I wonder how many had MGS or Banjo-Kazooie on their "next year" list in 97'.

There are a shitload of sequels coming out, but I bet we'll see more surprises like Darkest Dungeon as the year goes on.

@aegon:

FF XV isn't slated for release this year. It doesn't have a release year at all at this point so I guarantee you it isn't coming this year.

On topic, the only games I played on that list were Banjo Kazooie, Pokemon Red and Blue. I was 6 so I wasn't paying attention to video games at the time. Just playing whatever my mom bought me. So to me, this looks like the best year in gaming in a long time when I add in all the (mostly indie) games I'm interested in that are supposed to be coming this year.

Pokemon was 98? God, I thought it was earlier and I was late to the party, huh.

Fallout 2 man.. Still to this day one of the best RPG's ever made, and the best Fallout game. Too bad they never made anymore Fallout games after Tactics..

@mirado: It's pretty much all about the surprises. Remember what people were most excited to play in 2014? Watch_Dogs, Destiny, Titanfall.

Honestly, a more apt title for this would be "Innovation vs Iteration". Innovation wins.

@humanity: Hah, I remember someone here talking about how Fallout 1 is so much better than Fallout 2. There is definitely a shift in tone. (I personally like Fallout 2 and its referential humour a lot.)

Then there is also New Vegas, which seems to please fans of the old games a lot more than Fallout "Oblivion with guns" 3 did.

As for the topic:

Considering 1998 is probably the greatest year in gaming history thus far, 2015 will have to really knock it out of the park to come anywhere close to it. Not to mention that we will only be able to judge how good 2015 was years from now. So maybe this is more like a topic for the year 2020.

'Cause hindsight is 20/20! Get it!? Hah! ... I'll show myself out.

@hassun: It definitely has a really bad beginning. As a huge fan of Fallout 1, even I was a little discouraged by that temple of trials. Like what, I'm a dirty tribal? Once you finally get out there and forget your horrible past, that huge world is amazing. Also running into all those characters from the first game like Tandy being the president of the NC Republic, man that was great. I hated both of those new games and I refuse to acknowledge their existence so technically I don't even know what you're talking about when you say New Vegas..

1998 was really a great year although I didn't know it at the time. It seems like back in the days there were a lot more milestone shattering titles. These days I can't think of a game that really busted the hinges off a genre. There were plenty of really great games but I just don't think the impact was the same. Of course opinions, opinions, plenty of people seem to find games that changed their lives that I didn't feel the same about like The Last of Us. Who knows, maybe in 10 years I'll be able to look on this time with added distance and new appreciation.

1998, 2001 and 2004 were really my top 2. 2008 was really spectacular as well.

I really hadn't noticed each until say 2-3 years later when I got through all of those games from each year listed above. Like when you are in it, yeah, it looks like a good line up a lot of times, but I think it takes awhile with me at least to see how the games hold up over time also as a marker of their staying power.

The next 1998 will probably be in a couple years time when Virtual Reality tech is officially out and big names are making games for them from lots of different angles [*]. 1998 seems like the year when 3D games finally hit their stride, so my guess is another will only happen (and then be remembered in the same way) at another big technical leap (which is probably VR, despite how I'm not that into the idea).

[*] Edit - I meant that there will be a bunch of different developers aiming for different genres and stories - this wasn't some awfully bad pun.

Bloodborne, Witcher 3, and MGS 5 are the only things I'm looking forward to this year.

In 2007, I was looking forward to EVERYTHING. Almost every game that year was striving to be unlike anything out there. Every developer was fully utilizing the new technology in the once young consoles, and we got games like Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Rock Band, Halo 3, and Call of Duty 4. There was so much shit in 2007 that I just didn't know how I was going to access it all with my limited budget.

It seems like now there are tons of games that come out, but the majority of them turn out to be generic trash or trash in general.

While 2015 is looking like an amazing year, I think the thing that really stands out is that 1998 was not only filled with great games, it was filled with killer new IPs that are still going strong. I really hope that this year and next we get some new IPs that can do the same.