Dvader said:

I didn't have a PC that could run any of the groundbreaking games coming out for PC, but my best friend did! So I would play all these games at his house and one of my favoites was Tie-Fighter, my friend had the flight stick and everything. Yes I played a game where every button on the keyboard did something while having a flight stick with multiple hotkeys and I loved it.

Did your friend's dad do the typical "I'm going to hover over these bastards while they use the computer to make sure it doesn't get broken" 90's thing dads would do?

51. Gran Turismo 1 and 3

Yes there was a time where I became obsessed with a racing game, we all did. Gran Turismo was a phenomenon, a groundbreaking racing game that went on to become the premier franchise on the PS and PS2. When GT hit it blew everyone away with it's realistic graphics, best shown during the movie like replays. Yes look at that picture above, that was the height of 32-bit graphics. Another significant event happend with the launch of GT, the PS1 Dual Shock Controller was released, another legend was born. The dual shock has evolved some what over the years but it's design has remained for over 20 years, still my favorite controller.  The big deal was analog sticks have finally come to the PS1 and rumble, GT made sure to be a showcase for this new controller offering incredible analoge steering and rumble that made it feel like you were driving.

Never had I played a simulation racing game before, I am not a car guy so I didn't know much about anything with racing. GT was so different from anything else in the market, it taught you to properly race, tought racing lines, taught weight distribution, tought about the types of tires and their impact on grip. The licenses served as a driving school to ease you into this new kind of racing where you had to follow proper racing rules and physics (to an extent, you can bumper car your way to victory). What I loved most though was the game progression, you start with some junky car that soccer mom drives and slowly earn money, unlock different races and build your car garage with better cars. It was essencially a car RPG which kept me hooked until I beat every event and had the best cars. My baby was always the Viper, it couldnt brake for shit but man was it fast.

A weird thing happend to me where I would just buy the odd numbered GT games. GT2 came out at the end of the PS1 and I was aleady waiting for PS2. My friend had GT2 so we played together quite a bit, it make signifcant additions to the now looking back bear bones version of GT1. It's the better game but I didn't play it much so it means nothing to me. I waited for the next gen GT game, the one with graphics that could only be believed when seen.

Gran Turismo 3 was a mega sequel taking what was done with the first two and enhancing everything with the power of the PS2. The amount of cars was drastically reduced from GT2 to GT3 but with 180 cars it was still very impressive, the reason for the drop is because of how detailed every car was. The replays were stunning to look at, the care that went into each model clearly shows. GT3 was packed with content, loads of special events, rally races, formula 1 cars to unlock, endurance races, it upped the ante of the car RPG ten fold.

I put so many hours into GT3, I couldn't get enough of the reward loop, keep racing to get new cars to enter tougher events to get better cars, simple but perfectly effective. And during this many hours journey I would listen to the great GT3 soundtrack which had some great tunes incluong some Lenny Kravitz, 99 luftballoons, and Kickstart my heart! But my favorite was Judas Priest Turbo Lover which I had no clue said Turbo for like a year. Instead I would sing alone "I'm your TURTLE LOVER!!!!!!"  made no sense to me but thats what I heard lol.

I use to really enjoy Gran Turismo, until Forza came out.

50. Tekken 3

The fighting genre was never more popular than during the late 90s, arcades were dying and the shift toward putting those fighting gamae experiences on consoles was happening. But a simple port just doesn't work on a console, we want more. Tekken 3 was that more, so much more, like holy shit more. This game had everything, full CG ending cutscene for all characters, hidden secret characters like kuma and Gom, a 2D side scrolling brawler, and a fucking volleyball game. It introduced fan favorite characters like Hwoarang, Jin, Fury and the star of the show Eddy Gordo. Everyone wanted to play as Gordo, his capoeira fighting style was unlike anything we had seen in a 3D fighting game but the real kicker is that all you had to do was push buttons and Gordo will pull of some insane moves and make you feel like a pro. Tekken 3 set the gold standard for home fighting games, the craze this game set off I don't think has been replicated in this genre.

I still perfer Virtua Fighter's combat system to Tekkens's dial a combo but VF was so dry compared to the flashy Tekken back in the PS1 days. Tekken had the CG movies, the stunning graphics, the extra modes, the crazy characters. I never played 1 but my dad bought me Tekken 2 when I got my PS1, fighting games were one of the few games he enjoyed playing. He wasn't good but he liked to see the fights play out. His guy was Law, mine was Baek. Tekken 2 was fun but it was still mostly an arcade port. When Tekken 3 announced all the content it would have I was there day 1 and so were all my friends. We would have big Tekken play sessions, passing the controllers around in versus and trying to unlock all the games secrets. This was the last fighting game where I had that kind of experience, online killed all get togethers.  For it's time Tekken 3 was the king.