Happy 25th anniversary to System Shock 2 (I'm actually a day late, oops!). One of the original Immersive Sims, and precursor to the BioShock series. This has much more RPG elements than BioShock does, and an inventory grid.

Wikipeda Synopsis

System Shock 2 is a 1999 action role-playing survival horror video game designed by Ken Levine and co-developed by Irrational Games and Looking Glass Studios. Originally intended to be a standalone title, its story was changed during production into a sequel to the 1994 game System Shock. The alterations were made when Electronic Arts—who owned the System Shock franchise rights—signed on as publisher.

The game takes place on board a starship in a cyberpunk depiction of 2114. The player assumes the role of a soldier trying to stem the outbreak of a genetic infection that has devastated the ship. Like System Shock, gameplay consists of first-person combat and exploration. It incorporates role-playing elements, in which the player can develop skills and traits, such as hacking and psionic abilities.

System Shock 2 was originally released in August 1999 for Microsoft Windows. The game received critical acclaim but failed to meet commercial sales expectations. Many critics later determined that the game was highly influential in subsequent game design, particularly on first-person shooters, and considered it far ahead of its time. It has been included in several "greatest games of all time" lists. In 2007, Irrational Games released a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, titled BioShock, to critical acclaim and strong sales.

System Shock 2 had been in intellectual property limbo following the closure of Looking Glass Studios. Nightdive Studios were able to secure the rights to the game and the System Shock franchise in 2013 to release an updated version of System Shock 2 for modern operating systems, including for OS X and Linux, and announced plans to release an Enhanced Edition of the game. OtherSide Entertainment announced in 2015 that they had acquired the rights from Nightdive Studios to produce a sequel, System Shock 3, but as of 2020 the rights have since been transferred to Tencent.

Videos

MandaloreGaming - System Shock 2 Review

Finntrovert - System Shock 2 - Retrospective / Review

Ramsker - System Shock 2 is Still A Masterpiece

Boulder Punch - System Shock 2 Review | An Immersive Sim Classic

Links

IGDB Page

MobyGames Page

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This community is for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Post #2: [Retro Platinum] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989-05-12)

Post #3: [Retro Silver] Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (1999-05-12)

Post #4: [Retro] Doom 3 (2004-08-03)

Happy 20th anniversary to Doom 3! Everyone remembers this game for the tech (programmable shaders, render-to-texture'd normal maps, realtime stencil shadows), but this was also a great horror game! And the story was written by Matthew Costello, who also wrote the stories for The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour!

(IMO the BFG edition makes the game worse by removing the tension of using the flashlight, the levels were designed for the original flashlight switching mechanic. Use a source port like dhewm3 for playing on modern computers.)

Wikipeda Synopsis

Doom 3 is a 2004 survival horror first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. Doom 3 was originally released for Microsoft Windows on August 3, 2004, adapted for Linux later that year, and ported by Aspyr Media for Mac OS X in 2005. Developer Vicarious Visions ported the game to the Xbox, releasing it worldwide on April 4, 2005.

Doom 3 is set on Mars in 2145, where a military-industrial conglomerate has set up a scientific research facility into fields such as teleportation, biological research, and advanced weapons design. The teleportation experiments open a gateway to Hell, resulting in a catastrophic invasion of the Mars base by demons. The player controls a space marine who fights through the base to stop the demons attacking Mars and reaching Earth.

Doom 3 is the first reboot of the Doom series, ignoring the events of the previous games. Doom 3 utilizes the id Tech 4 game engine, which has since been licensed out to other developers, and later released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later in November 2011.

Doom 3 was a critical and commercial success; with more than 3.5 million copies of the game sold, it was the most successful game by developer id Software up to that date. Critics praised the game's graphics, presentation, and atmosphere, although reviewers were divided by how close the gameplay was to that of the original Doom, focusing primarily on simply fighting through large numbers of enemy characters. The game was followed by Resurrection of Evil, an expansion pack developed by Nerve Software, in April 2005. A series of novelizations of Doom 3, written by Matthew J. Costello, debuted in February 2008. An expanded and remastered edition titled Doom 3: BFG Edition was released in the fourth quarter of 2012. It has been ported to various platforms, including some which enable portable and virtual reality gameplay.

Videos

John Carmack Announcing Doom 3 at MacWorld 2001 - "The final unification of lighting and shadowing across all surfaces in a game."

Doom 3 - 16 Years Later: An LGR Retrospective

The Making of Doom 3 and the History of id Software

Links

IGDB Page

MobyGames Page

About [email protected]

This community is for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Post #2: [Retro Platinum] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989-05-12)

Post #3: [Retro Silver] Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (1999-05-12)

Happy 25th anniversary to the final version of Street Fighter III!

This game perfected the 2D tournament fighter genre, after first getting the crown with Street Fighter II. The advanced combo system and gameplay, smooth and detailed 2D sprite animation, and player roster size made this a fan favorite of the series.

Wikipedia Synopsis

"Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future"|ストリートファイターIII サードストライク ファイト・フォー・ザ・フューチャー is a 2D fighting game developed and published by Capcom, originally released in 1999 for the arcades and in 2000 for the Dreamcast. In 2004 it was released on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. A downloadable online version titled "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition" was released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade in 2011.

"Street Fighter III 3rd Strike" is the second and final follow-up to "Street Fighter III", following "Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact". Like its predecessors, it runs on the CP System III hardware."3rd Strike" increased the character roster by adding five new characters, notably including Chun-Li. It also added further refinements to the previous game's play mechanics and rules. The game was well received in all of its versions and has since been regarded as one of the greatest fighting games of all time. On 29 May 2018, "Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike - Fight for the Future" was released as a part of the "Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection" for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One.

Videos

Maximilian Dood - Greatest Fighting Game Ever Made | Street Fighter 3: Third Strike - The Fighting Games that MADE ME

World of Longplays - Arcade Longplay [373] Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Panda - SHOULD YOU PLAY STREET FIGHTER III: 3rd STRIKE Feat. Justin Wong

CEO Gaming - CEO 2023 SF3 3rD Strike GRAND FINALS - JWONG vs RICKY

Links

IGDB page

MobyGames page

About [email protected]

This is the third post in this brand new community for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Post #2: [Retro Platinum] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989-05-12)

Happy 35th Anniversary to (I believe) the first Ninja Turtles game for home release. I loved Ninja Turtles as a kid, and I did attempt to play this game (on NES) a lot, but it was way too difficult lol. At least the soundtrack rocked.

For this post, we're using the May 12th release date of the Famicom and other platform releases. The NES release was June 1st. Apparently this game was on DOS too, I had no idea it released on so many platforms! Wikipedia lists the platforms as: Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum, PlayChoice-10.

Wikipeda Synopsis

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, known as Geki Kame Ninja Den in Japan and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in Europe, is a 1989 side-scrolling action-platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System released by Konami. In North America it was published under Konami's Ultra Games imprint in the US and the equivalent PALCOM brand in Europe and Australia.

Alongside the arcade game (also developed by Konami), it was one of the first video games based on the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, being released after the show's second season. The game sold more than 4 million cartridges worldwide.

Videos

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Nintendo NES commercial

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) - Angry Video Game Nerd

DOS - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) Music Soundtrack Playlist

Links

IGDB page

MobyGames page

About [email protected]

This is the second post in this brand new community for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.

Post #1: [Retro Platinum] King's Quest: Quest for the Crown (1984-05-10)

Happy 40th anniversary to the first game in the King's Quest series, one of the first graphical adventure games, and where Sierra really made their name.

This game also kicked off the Adventure Game Interpreter (AGI) engine, which Sierra used for many games. Wikipedia says: They employed it in 14 of their games between 1984 and 1989, before replacing it with a more sophisticated engine, Sierra's Creative Interpreter. There's no Wikipedia article for the SCI engine, but I know it was used in Phantasmagoria and Shivers, here is the ScummVM wiki page for SCI instead.

Wikipedia Synopsis

King's Quest: Quest for the Crown is an adventure game developed by Sierra On-Line and published originally for the IBM PCjr in 1984 and later for several other systems between 1984 and 1989. The game was originally titled King's Quest; the subtitle was added to the games box art in the 1987 re-release, but did not appear in the game.

It is the first official part of the long King's Quest series (not counting 1980's Wizard and the Princess), in which a young knight, Sir Graham, must save the Kingdom of Daventry to become the king. Designed by Roberta Williams, the game was revolutionary and highly influential in the evolution of the graphic adventure game genre by introducing more detailed graphics and animation.

An official remake titled King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown was released in 1990. An unofficial remake was released by Tierra Entertainment in 2001.

Videos

Space Quest Historian - King's Quest: A Fair and Balanced Retrospective

Power Pak - King's Quest - The First Adventure

Links

IGDB page

MobyGames page

About [email protected]

This is the first post in this brand new community for big milestone anniversaries of retro games (15 years or older, every multiple of 5 years). See our sidebar for more info and resources for making your own posts here.