What I Played in 1996

On 08/13/2015 at 01:19 AM by KnightDriver

1996 in gaming. Ah yes. The N64 came out. I didn't get one that year though. I was still mainly on PC playing shooters and strategy games. Somehow I also had a Playstation, SNES, Genesis and NES. How I got all that stuff, I don't remember. I had little money and had to have gotten them cheap second hand. It was the day of flea markets where you could get stuff cheap. My friend and I went to them most weekends to pick up anything gaming related. The internet ended all that. Thank you internet. NOT! Below is a list of the stuff I played most.

Duke Nukem 3D	PC, XBLA
Final Doom	PC, PS
Quake	PC, Saturn, N64
Destruction Derby 2	PS

Duke Nukem 3D. I must've played this more than anything else. What fun it was running around the levels with a friend and griefing each other with laser trip mines or explosive shell shotgun blasts. That never got old. I played it on PC, when it came to Playstation, and then N64. I never had a Saturn, but that was the best console to play it on since it had everything the PC version had. All the versions were fun though. Duke Nukem hasn't aged well in the humor department. It seems hopelessly, embarassingly juvenile, even offensive, now, but I still daily call up a one-liner or two in the voice of Jon St. John, "Come get some", or others not so tame.

Final Doom was more Doom levels made by some other devs and approved by id. I played it on PC and PS1. Couldn't turn down more Doom. No sir.

Quake was id's next game. It had a Gothic horror theme and used a new engine. It was a blast of course and I played it where ever it showed up: PC and N64 (I didn't have a Saturn back then, so not that version). I thought this game was an unlockable within Quake 4 on Xbox 360, but it's Quake II. I got Quake 4 today anyway. It was $3. I'm not sure why Quake I and II aren't on downloadable services on consoles like Doom and Doom Ii are. I'd like to run through it again and don't have a console version to play. . . yet.

Destruction Derby 2 was my favorite of the series on Playstation. The first game is on PSN right now, but the second game is nowhere. I'm annoyed. This game had great tracks and destructible cars. You could watch the damage level on each side of your car and protect your weak side. I liked it better than the first game because I don't like arena play. This had races on big wide tracks with jumps. The Burnout series would eventually take up this style of crash-racing. DD2 is Road Rash for cars. That's how I like to think of it.

There are 39 other titles I'd like to play from this year. Very high among them is Super Mario RPG, which I almost finished last year. I want to start it all over again. Also the Kirby games: Kirby Super Star on SNES and Kirby's Block Ball on Game Boy. Both are easily found today on Kirby's Dream Collection on Wii and 3DS Virtual Console respectively.

And that's my '96 in gaming.

Cary Woodham

08/13/2015 at 07:43 AM

The big main game I remember in 1996 was Super Mario 64. But there was also Super Mario RPG and Kirby Super Star. 1996 was also the first year I started writing game reviews for the newspaper, and one of the first I reviewed was Donkey Kong Country 3.

KnightDriver

08/13/2015 at 04:21 PM

I've played some Super Mario 64. I still have the original N64 cart for it. I want to try it again. I don't think I've even tried DKC3.

Super Step Contributing Writer

08/13/2015 at 09:05 AM

I wouldn't get an N64 until 1997, but I remember watching a friend play Super Mario RPG. I played either Quake or Quake II at my friend's apartment a year or so back and ... wasn't all that impressed to be honest. I'd still say Goldeneye was superior to it in terms of multiplayer.

08/13/2015 at 04:30 PM

It's really hard to see these old games clearly now. When I first went back to Wolfenstein 3d about a year or so ago, I couldn't play it because every room looked the same. Star Wars Dark Forces was equally dull and boring to me when I replayed it on PSN, and Marathon 2: Durandal was so lacking in detail, I got lost constantly. I replayed Wolfenstein 3d recently, though, and got used to the lack of visuals and enjoyed it.

I loved Quake but didn't play much multiplayer. I was thrilled with Duke Nukem 64's multiplayer though. I have vivid memories of that. I never did try Goldeneye back then, for some strange reason.

08/13/2015 at 06:35 PM

Actually, I could never navigate those old 90s FPS games like Wolfenstein when I played them back then and got frustrated and gave up on them quite easily. Quake (II?) didn't have THAT problem when I played it years later: the levels were small and dull to me, but I could navigate them. But Wolfenstein and similar PC FPS games I had access to in the 90s were confusing to me then, too. I think I might actually be better at navigating those samey maze hallways now that I'm older.

08/14/2015 at 03:34 AM

It's a weird kind of state of mind you have to be in. On first replay of Wolfenstein 3d after many years, I couldn't handle it, but this time I could just find my way around no problem. I think it's just getting the eyes used to more subtle differences in the rooms and hallways. We're so used to realistic environments today where it's easy to navigate.

08/14/2015 at 04:19 AM

To be honest, I often get disoriented/lost in first-person games in general. Occasionally I get lost in third-person worlds where some rooms are kinda same-y.But yeah, those old ones didn't help with their samey walls.

08/15/2015 at 03:45 AM

And it's always about those colored key cards. I have the yellow one, but now I need the red one. Grrrrr!

Matt Snee Staff Writer

08/24/2015 at 07:01 PM

Quake blew my mind. played that game for years.

08/25/2015 at 12:40 AM

I want to play it again on PS or N64.

PixlBit