1990s
23 games
Final Fantasy VII
The game that made RPGs mainstream in the West. Hironobu Sakaguchi named the series Final Fantasy be...
Chrono Trigger
The dream team: Final Fantasy creator, Dragon Quest creator, and Dragon Ball artist. Multiple ending...
Super Mario 64
Defined 3D platforming for every game that followed. Miyamoto created the analog stick control schem...
GoldenEye 007
Proved first-person shooters could work on consoles. The multiplayer mode defined dorm room gaming f...
Ocarina of Time
The highest-rated game of all time on Metacritic with a 99. Z-targeting revolutionized 3D combat. Ov...
Half-Life
Gabe Newells first game after leaving Microsoft. The scripted sequences told a story without cutscen...
Metal Gear Solid
Hideo Kojima proved games could be cinematic. The Psycho Mantis boss read your memory card and moved...
Pokemon Red/Blue
Satoshi Tajiri based it on his childhood hobby of insect collecting. Over 31 million copies sold. Th...
Street Fighter II
Created the competitive fighting game genre. The combo system was discovered by accident. Over 200,0...
Mortal Kombat
The gore and fatalities led to the creation of the ESRB rating system. Over 800,000 arcade cabinets ...
Tekken 3
The best-selling fighting game of its era with over 8 million copies on PS1. Introduced Eddy Gordo, ...
Doom
John Carmack and John Romero created the first massively popular FPS. The engine rendered pseudo-3D ...
Quake
True 3D rendering with mouse look. Created the machinima movement. The multiplayer defined competiti...
StarCraft
South Korea adopted it as a national sport with televised matches. Over 11 million copies sold. The ...
Age of Empires II
Wololo became one of gamings most recognizable sound effects. Over 3 million copies at launch, milli...
SimCity 2000
Will Wright created the city-building genre. The isometric view was revolutionary. Over 4 million co...
FIFA series
Over 325 million copies sold across the entire series. EA paid FIFA 150 million per year for the lic...
Gran Turismo
Kazunori Yamauchi spent five years creating the real driving simulator. Over 10 million copies on PS...
Tomb Raider
Lara Croft became a pop culture icon beyond gaming. Toby Gard designed her as a strong female protag...
Super Mario World
A launch title for the Super Famicom in Japan and packed in with the Super Nintendo in North America...
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sega created a fast blue hedgehog to challenge Mario and give the Genesis a mascot. Designer Naoto O...
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The third Zelda game returned to a top down view and added the Light World and Dark World, two paral...
Super Mario Kart
The first Mario Kart created the kart racing genre, mixing racing with item based combat using shell...