What was the best game of 1998?

Metal Gear Solid

Ocarina of Time. Accept no substitutes.

I'm also tempted to pick Sonic Adventure since it's one of my most played games, but it technically came out in the west in '99, same as Pokemon Yellow, though I guess you can substitute it with Red & Blue. OoT is another good pick obviously.

I have a ps2 game but my control not working it a ps1 control but it work on other games

Easily this one.

@Renegade_Fury: I never got to play Panzer Dragoon Saga *sobs*.

I can't answer that question since there was so many great games in 1998.

@SolidGame_basic: Most people haven't, so you're definitely not alone. Plus, I think it goes for around $700 these days.

For me it is Zelda: Ocarina of Time. One of the best games ever in my opinion.

@Renegade_Fury: speaking of JRPG's, I'm playing Ys 8 now and I love it!

Can't really decide, so many good games that year. The one I did play the most was Rainbow Six, that was my first PC game alongside FIFA 98 RTTWC and NFS3: Hot Pursuit.

Half-Life. However, just going over that list reminds me of how good 1998 was. I played through starcraft and broodwar not too long ago as well. I have to cringe at how bad the story was butchered in SC2 compared to the original. Blizzard ruined the entire lore for WC, SC, and Diablo with their successors, not sure if they had a totally new writing team that read some terrible fan fiction and went with it.

@SolidGame_basic: I've been meaning to get into that series for a while. I bought a whole bunch of them during a Humble Bundle, but I've only played a little of Origins, lol. I do like listening to their soundtracks at least.

Couple of these I haven't played, but from the ones I have Halflife.

Resident Evil 2 is a close second. Both this and Halflife hold a special place my Owen Hart.

Bug's Life.

I loved that game when I was a child.

Half life 1 was ahead of its time. if you compare it to RE2, MGS, oracina of time. HL looks generation ahead.

in MGS dead bodies disappeared, in Half life not.

@Renegade_Fury: I can’t say for the other games, but I definitely think you would like 8.

Ocarina of time was great, but Half-Life made my jaw drop more than I could count.

Of the games listed... Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit is still to this day one of my favorite games. While I like a few of the others, they can't compare in overall fun and long lasting appeal.

StarCraft. It's the only game from 1998 that I believe has been actively played, consistently, since it came out.

Heck, I still play it from time to time and I've been playing it since then.

1) Metal gear

2) Ocarina of time

Quake 2

The SP was okay in its own right. But, the MP was fricking insane.

I still play Quake 2 on the old netbook. One of the few games that can hit 60 fps most of the time.

For me, it was Pokemon Red/Blue cause those games made it to the West in 1998 for Gameboy and Pokemon Yellow made it to the West in 1999. So I ended up voting Pokemon Yellow cause you have it up their for 1998 and I was still in the Pokemon honeymoon. I played Half-Life but I never own a PC at the time and ended up playing it with a friend who owned a PC decades ago. Half-Life was a great game but nothing comes close to Pokemon gameboys, not even Ocarina of Time, Sonic Adventure or anything else. Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow was my jam in 1998!

@davillain-: my bad I messed up pokemon lol I should've known better too I played red and blue back in the day

OOT I'm not too much of a fan of. I think the pacing is very bad. After you do 1 small tutorial dungeon, you do fetch quests - literally running from one end of the map to another for about an hour along with dumb mini-games. The world design is very flat and boring. I think it's aged terribly.

Metal Gear Solid is paced much better than later entries, with better story-telling and basic, but enjoyable action/stealth. The game got more and more off-the rails as it continued with 4 being the pinnacle of over-indulgence At this point his ego was rampant with no one keeping him in check. It feels very small scale and personal, moody, oppressive atmosphere, it's great.

Resident Evil 2 is pretty much, the perfect sequel. It takes the first game, improves and expands literally everything. It's the video game equivalent of Evil Dead 2, to Evil Dead.

Halflife is just a really big, big masterpiece. Really big.

Probably the biggest.

It's cool. At least you have Pokemon up in that poll because the late 90's was the golden age of Pokemon game and Anime :)

I agree. Metal Gear solid 1 was great game. probably best console game of that time. only MGS game that has good story and was well paced. but i highly enjoyed it. didnot liked any other entry in series. MGS5 is pretty crap and boring. the prologue was worst prologue i have ever played and then game become bland empty open world game with repetetiveness.

RE2 I was not impressed with tank controls. so only RE i ever liked is RE7. amazing game that is.

You forgot to include Fallout 2 on your list!

(And, to a lesser extent, Turok 2 - the console shooter that was years ahead of its time).

Anyway, ye gods, I don't know.

I'll vote for Grim Fandago - that was also Gamespot's choice for GOTY - since I love adventure games, but it could just as easily be Fallout 2, Thief, Half-Life or OOT.

I probably wouldn't vote for Metal Gear Solid, if only because it felt a bit dated alongside Thief.

What a wonderful year... I voted Thief, but there are a lot of gems on that list

Honestly just being reminded of what released in that year is unreal. What a ridiculously good year. I voted for Xenogears. If only the game had a proper solid disc 2.

Metal Gear Solid easily wins.

Half Life (my vote) and Metal Gear Solid > Ocarina. I feel these 2 did more for gaming, and people pretend like all games copied Zelda, when I can't think of any. If Ocarina was the future, why'd they ditch it for Wind Waker. I feel way more were inspired by MGS and HL.

Resident Evil 2 and Tomb Raider 3 are all-time classics, still fully playable today (I know cause I have), but per usual throughout history, these franchises get the cult following, but don't get that all-time/goty love, even if funner.

Banjo, Baldurs Gate, and Pokemon Yellow are relics of the past, and deserve some honors, I just can't imagine voting them.

Metal gear solid

1. Ocarina

2. Half-Life

3. MGS

The rest are all lower tier.

Sonic Adventure

1998 is also when I bought 2 x 6 MB Blackmagic 3dfx Voodoo 2. Although Quake 2 remained my primary reason for them (1024x 768 at +100 fps), I also bought Unreal mainly because of the pretty intro. It was my tech demo of the time because it also had a benchmarking tool built in which used the intro fly by. Quake 2 also had timedemos. But, Unreal was prettier.

Ocarina of Time, obviously. Not even a competition.

Man, all that in one year? MGS for me

1 - Thief: Dark Project

2 - Fallout 2

3 - Might & Magic VI - Mandate of Heaven

No unreal? really?

considering the multiplayer component it's actually better than halflife, and the single player component was way up there as well.

It also had bots with groundbreaking A.I., making the replay value infinitily better than halflife, not many people had internet in 1998 or at least not infinite fast ones (phone charges could add up after a while)

Halflife had Team Fortress Classic and Counterstrike, and generally far longer support in MP thanks to a passionate mod community.

It wasn't really until 1999's Unreal Tournament that people took notice, with it overshadowing the original Unreal.

team fortress and counterstrike only released in 1999, and they didn't had the groundbreaking AI bots that unreal had.

Because of that, in terms of single player replay value it was considered miles better than halflife.

and people did notice lol, but unreal tournament did improve on the existing formula.

That doesn't really nullify it. It's literally a few months after release and the game even today is modded.

"Because of that, in terms of single player replay value it was considered miles better than halflife."

Not sure I get you there, I've played Unreal a couple of times, as I have Halflife, but generally when it comes to replay value I tend to gravitate towards id's titles, particularly Quake 1/2 which tend to have better crafted levels and more impactful weapons.

The Skaarj has impressive AI, because unlike most AI even today, it will traverse over and up objects, that most definitely stands out, but not to the point it felt like it extended replay value. The fire-fights themselves are situational where it will shoot and dodge over and over in specific places.

The main two things that stood out to me wasn't it's AI but the scale of the first level in contrast to how well the engine looked. This, coupled dynamic music that was zen/trance rather than the typical death metal id popularized. It was emotive without uttering a single word, which unfortunately it's sequel shat all over.

But whatever, it's your choice, I won't begrudge you. Heck, it's nice someone brought it up, the game goes highly unrecognised.

Fzero X deserves to be on that list, no?

That's an incredible list. Although I'd question the inclusion of Sonic Adventure. That game was always a bit of a dodgy mess.

Gran Turismo on the original Playstation.

Damn. Good year for games. Personal favorite is Ocarina of Time. You can argue that Half-Life is better, but I enjoyed OoT more. None of the other games on the list have a chance, except for Thief maybe.

It was between MGS, OoT or Resi 2..... and I went with Resi 2 as the story was awesome, the locations memorable........everything about it.

MGS > Half life > Resident Evil 2 > Ocarina of time.