Latest post: PC Games of 1990.

Search String

PC Games 1993

History of 1990s Computer Games | Computer Game Reviews | Amiga Game Reviews

1993 PC Games



This is a sample list of PC games that came out in 1993. The PC games are listed in alphabetical order. Both MS-DOS and Amiga games are included. I will expand on this list in the future.

1993 was such a great year to be a computer gamer; one of the best years in terms of quality coupled with quantity and variety. The computer gamer of 1993 had access to top-tier sprite-based scrollers, isometric scrollers, super-scalers, flip-screen games, 2D vector games, 2.5D games, 2D interpolators, pre-rendered games and realtime 3D texture-mapped and flat-shaded games -- the gamut.

Indeed, by virtue of a few tech-spikes 1993 might be the year that best highlights what PC gaming was about: the tech-gulf between one game and another was at its widest due to rapid and uneven software and hardware engineering advancements.

As such, 1993 was 10x better than 1996 even though 1996 was still a good year. I mean, at least 1993 wasn't 3D-obsessed: even the Killer App needed sprites. Also, it was nice to play games that actually scrolled smoothly and updated at twice the rate of SVGA games of 1996. And yes, at least 1993 games featured lots of hand-drawn graphics instead of low-effort pre-renders. And while they are not hand-drawn even the digitized and rotoscoped sprites of the early 90s look better and have aged better than the pre-rendered sprites of the late 90s.
 
In 1993 the first big CD-ROM games came out on PC; namely, The 7th Guest and Rebel Assault. Yes, early CD-ROM games were overrated garbage in terms of gameplay, but they wowed the normies -- and that is all you have to do in order to be remembered, wow the normies. The rabble may be fickle as a rule, but they are always impressed by useless asset bloat -- and that is what most early CD-ROM games featured, useless asset bloat.

Naturally, this article lists some 1993 games that normies did not even know existed, blinded as they were by the Killer App and cinematization.

In 1993 many PC games were distributed on 7 to 11 diskettes, which was just too many. It was digital audio & cutscenes that filled decks of magnetic media, not so much gameplay code or assets directly related to gameplay. 1993 data compression software included DEARJ/UNARJ by Robert K. Jung, LHA's SFX by Haruyasu Yoshizaki aka Yoshi and PKSFX Fast! Self-extract Utility by Phil Katz and PKWARE Inc.

Several 1993 diskette-based games took 1-3 hours to extract and install to hard disk drive, but at least they could be installed entirely, unlike most CD-ROM games. Installation sizes for diskette-based games ranged from 1-30 megs whereas up to 600 megs of audiovisual data was sought from CD-ROM.

In 1993 the Amiga was all but Doomed by the Killer App and yet the most technically advanced 2D arcade-action Amiga game was released (Lionheart) and the Amiga's smoothest and fastest super-scrollers and super-scalers were released (Uridium 2Prime Mover). Moreover, more 1993 Amiga games ran at 50 FPS than in any other year. However, the Amiga was not performing well enough for Commodore -- or rather, Commodore were not performing well enough for AGA Amigas to survive beyond 1995 as computer game machines, which was tragic but nevertheless foreseen.

While notable exceptions exist to the rule (Frontier: Elite 2The Settlers) Amiga devs were pushing aging Alienware to the max in established genre whereas PC devs were able to experiment and break new technical ground while also porting some great ST/Amiga games to the PC; sometimes, in enhanced form. On the other hand, Amiga ports of 1993 PC games never matched the PC versions.

In the main PC devs were able to break new technical ground thanks to 486DX2 66 MHz CPUs, the VESA Local Bus and audiovideo chipset cost reduction and consolidation. Even in early 1993 several PC games demanded the 486DX2-66 and 16 megs of RAM whereas Amiga gamers commonly ran games on 14 MHz 020s and 2 megs of Chip with no trapdoor Fast; that is, unexpanded A1200s of late 1992.

Thus, 1993 PC gamers had the best of both worlds in that they could switch between traditional "coinop" genre (in which PCs had underperformed from 1985 to 1991) and emerging genre with cutting-edge audiovisuals and math coprocessor employment (iDX). On top of that, PC gamers could play some games in hi-res 640x480 whereas the average Amiga could not handle hi-res games at decent framerates, such as Syndicate, The Settlers and SimCity 2000.

For those upgrading from 8-bit and "16-bit" micros, the 32-bit 486DX2 seemed to offer unlimited power and potential, but the truth is that -- in terms of raw gameplay and fun-factor -- x86/x64 games are no better than 8-bit ones from the early 1980s, such as Boulder Dash.



The King computer game and Killer App of 1993 was of course Doom yet the most technically advanced game of 1993 is not as clear cut because flight sims pushed the envelope just as hard if not harder than Doom did. In 1993 no game was hungrier for RAM and raw processing power than Strike Commander.

The following point-form enumeration of established and emerging hardware and software technologies pertain to computer game machines, not workstations.

Established Hardware & Software Technologies of 1993


  • Intel i80486DX2 66 MHz CPU and 16 megs of RAM
  • AMD Am486DX clocked at 25-50 MHz
  • Cyrix Cx486SLC/DLC clocked at 20-50 MHz
  • 512K to 1 meg of vRAM
  • Motorola 68K and 68020, 030 and 040 CPUs (Amiga) [1]
  • ISA bus and VESA Local Bus with 256K cache
  • VGA 320x200 and non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240
  • SVGA 640x400
  • MS-DOS 5.0 / Windows 3.x
  • EMS memory
  • Memory managers: Custom, EMM386, QEMM-386, 386 MAX, SMARTDRV
  • Yamaha OPL2/3-based music (FM Synthesis)
  • 16-bit PCM sampling (Sound Blaster 16, Gravis UltraSound etc.)
  • Digitized speech and sound effects (sound cards)
  • Flat-shaded 3D (solid-filled)
  • 3.5" HD 1.44 MB diskettes as distribution media
  • Game installation: Custom or PKSFX Fast, DEARJ/UNARJ or LHA's SFX
  • 100-400 meg hard disk drives
  • Hardware mouse cursors
  • Super-smooth hardware scrolling (VGA and Amiga)
  • Joysticks: Thrustmaster WCS Mk1 and CH Flightstick and Flightstick Pro

[1]

In 1993 third-party 040 accelerators for A500s and A2000s of 1987 were frequently matching 486es. We are talking about 28 MIPS / 8 MFLOPs.

The 486DX-33 came in at 11 MIPS and the 486DX2-66 came in at 25 MIPS (Doom era) whereas the Pentium 100 came in at 190 MIPS (Quake era).

Also, I should add somewhere, and here is as good as any place, that from 1985 to 1993 mouse-driven native Amiga games enjoyed smoother hardware cursors than native VGA games of that same time-frame.

Emerging Hardware & Software Technologies of 1993



Each entry below links to either technical overviews, reviews or deep delves on the game. You can click an image and mouse-wheel up and down through the images.

In this list I tried to represent PC games from various genre based on different technologies; there is even an EGA game included! -- can the reader pick it out? :)

List of 1993 PC Games












Best 1993 Computer Games: Awards


  • Best TBS game of 1993: Master of Orion
  • Best cRPG of 1993: Betrayal at Krondor
  • Best Adventure Game of 1993: Star Trek: Judgment Rites
  • Best FPS of 1993: Doom
  • Best Flight Sim of 1993: Frontier: Elite 2
  • Best versus Fighter of 1993: Mortal Kombat
  • Best Racing sim of 1993: IndyCar Racing
  • Best Coinop port of 1993: Mortal Kombat
  • Best Shoot 'em up of 1993: Disposable Hero
  • Best Run and gun game of 1993: Alien Breed
  • Best Sprite-scaler of 1993: Doom
  • Best Scroller of 1993: Uridium 2
  • Best 3D game of 1993: Frontier: Elite 2
  • Best 2D game of 1993: Master of Orion
  • Best Game of 1993: Doom & Frontier: Elite 2

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.