Essays 31 October 2023, 08:43

Heroes 3 and Online Frags - 10 Best Games of 1999

There may have been fewer games in 1999 starting cult series popular for decades to come, but there was certainly no shortage of timeless hits. Here's our subjective retro list of the top 10 games of 1999.

The year is 1999. Soon, we will be picking our jaws off the floor, watching The Matrix, and then, waiting a little longer than the rest of the world, wondering whether we actually like Phantom Menace, the much-awaited first episode of Star Wars. We'll get chills watching Blair Witch Project and Sixth Sense. We continue to learn about music in the traditional way: through the radio, music videos, and CDs. The music is ruled by soul and R&B with hits by Destiny's Child, TLC, and Christina Aguilera. Britney Spears is also extremely popular, and soon we'll hear the atmospheric Still D.R.E. Good, old rock cannot be forgotten, because we get new Red Hots with the extraordinary Californication.

And what's happening in the computer games industry? Let's recall the set form back then - for instance: Pentium II 433 MHz processor, 32 MB of RAM, 8 MB SVGA card, Riva TNT or GeForce 256. The mandatory equipment included a x48 CD-ROM drive and a Sound Blaster sound card. And the lucky ones could boast about having a "monster" with a Pentium III 600 MHz!

We invite you to our TOP 10 retro games, this time from the year when we anxiously awaited what would happen when the date on our computers changed from 1999 to 2000.

Notable mentions

Below are a few games that most certainly deserved to be on this list, but for various reasons couldn't be:

Medal of Honor;
Soul Calibur;
System Shock 2;
GTA 2;
Final Fantasy VIII;
The Longest Journey;
Gran Turismo 2.

Planescape: Torment

Release date: December 10
Developer: Black Isle Studios
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC Windows

It's time to roll out the big guns! Everyone who played Planescape: Tormenta will remember this extraordinary, extremely emotional journey for a long time. Finishing this game was quite a challenge, considering the multitude of texts, descriptions, and dialogues it contains. We accompanied the anonymous protagonist in the game, bearing the burden of both immortality and memory loss with each death. Instead of an emphasis on combat, there was more plot, more narrative, feelings, dilemmas, more NPCs who were memorable, and opportunities to shape your journey the way you wanted.

Planescape: Torment evoked similar feelings then as the third installment of Baldur's Gate today. At that time, it shared the engine, publisher, and partly the D&D universe with the first installment of Baldur. The game didn't achieve great commercial success. According to Brian Fargo, about 400,000 copies were sold by 2017. Not much, but the game was well received by both players and reviewers. Everything was praised - the narrative, dialogues, consequences of choices, and the idea of dying as a plot-developing mechanic. However, the biggest surprise was the protagonist - who was very different from the standard and predictable "good hero" from other RPGs. Planescape: Torment instantly became not only the best RPG of the year but also one of the best games of all time.

Planescape: Torment in our encyclopedia

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Planescape: Torment