Sonic the Hedgehog
1990's
This decade was a decade of many innovations. Video games transited from pixels to 3D graphics, leading the way to the development of many new video game genres such as first-person shooter, and real-time strategy along with massively multiplayer online gaming (MMO). What was also new in this decade was handheld gaming and how popular it had become, thanks mainly to the release of the Game Boy. Arcade games begin to lessen as home consoles become more popular. Major developments of this decade include the beginning of larger consolidation publishers, higher budget games, and the increased size of the number of people designing games.
The computing power increased, also costing less such as the Intel 80386, and Motorola 68030.
1990
In these years, shareware distribution was the most popular method of publishing games for the small developers. It gave the consumers a chance to try a trial portion of the game, so as to then decide whether to purchase the rest of the game or not, the trial only costing a few dollars. Because it was such a big success, but floppies were inadequate for the job, which is what was used for the trials, they were then placed on CDs, and put in magazines, so as to also convince people to buy the magazines. This is still sued today.
1991
Sonic the Hedgehog is introduced. This game gave Sega’s Mega Drive console the popularity it needed, rivaling Mario, created by Nintendo.
1992
The first real-time strategy game is released, Dune II, setting the standard game mechanics for later games such as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, and Command & Conquer. These games are characterized by an overhead view, a mini map of the whole game, and the control of not only the military but also economic aspect of the army.
1993
Adventure games continued to evolve, bringing graphical interaction and the creation of the concept of “point-and-click” gaming. Myst is developed, and is one of the first computer games to make full use of the new CD-ROM storage format.
1995
It was in these years that Maxis develops its successful line of Sim games. Maxis first starts with SimCity, then creating SimEarth, SimCity 2000, SimAnt, SimTower, and the most ever sold PC game in history, The Sims, but The Sims is only published in 2000.
1996
The first affordable 3D accelerator cards for personal computers are developed. They performed a portion of the computations required for the more-detailed three-dimensional graphics, allowing more better graphics than if the CPU were required to handle not only the game logic but also the graphical tasks. The first person shooter game Quake was amongst the first to take advantage of this new technology. The way the performance of these games was measured was with the yardstick, usually quantified as the number of frames per second rendered for a particular scene in a particular game.
The computing power increased, also costing less such as the Intel 80386, and Motorola 68030.
1990
In these years, shareware distribution was the most popular method of publishing games for the small developers. It gave the consumers a chance to try a trial portion of the game, so as to then decide whether to purchase the rest of the game or not, the trial only costing a few dollars. Because it was such a big success, but floppies were inadequate for the job, which is what was used for the trials, they were then placed on CDs, and put in magazines, so as to also convince people to buy the magazines. This is still sued today.
1991
Sonic the Hedgehog is introduced. This game gave Sega’s Mega Drive console the popularity it needed, rivaling Mario, created by Nintendo.
1992
The first real-time strategy game is released, Dune II, setting the standard game mechanics for later games such as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, and Command & Conquer. These games are characterized by an overhead view, a mini map of the whole game, and the control of not only the military but also economic aspect of the army.
1993
Adventure games continued to evolve, bringing graphical interaction and the creation of the concept of “point-and-click” gaming. Myst is developed, and is one of the first computer games to make full use of the new CD-ROM storage format.
1995
It was in these years that Maxis develops its successful line of Sim games. Maxis first starts with SimCity, then creating SimEarth, SimCity 2000, SimAnt, SimTower, and the most ever sold PC game in history, The Sims, but The Sims is only published in 2000.
1996
The first affordable 3D accelerator cards for personal computers are developed. They performed a portion of the computations required for the more-detailed three-dimensional graphics, allowing more better graphics than if the CPU were required to handle not only the game logic but also the graphical tasks. The first person shooter game Quake was amongst the first to take advantage of this new technology. The way the performance of these games was measured was with the yardstick, usually quantified as the number of frames per second rendered for a particular scene in a particular game.
SimCity by Maxis
