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PC Games 1996

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

1996 PC Games



This is a curated list of PC games that came out in 1996. The PC games are listed in alphabetical order. Both MS-DOS and Windows PC games are included. I will expand on this list in the future.

This is the final part of a series of articles that covers the strongest years of the decade of 1990-99:


Hardware and Software Technologies that Gained Ground in 1996


  • Pentium and Pentium Pro CPUs (100-200 MHz)
  • 256-512K level 2 cache
  • XMS memory (32-64 megs of EDO DRAM)
  • 2-4 megs of EDO DRAM (vRAM cost-reduction)
  • Rational Systems DOS/4GW Protected mode run-time
  • 2-4 gig EIDE hard disk drives
  • 6-speed to 12-speed CD-ROM drives
  • Stacked CD-ROM drives
  • Windows 95 and DirectX v2.0-3.0
  • Direct3D and OpenGL 3D APIs
  • VESA Local Bus / PCI Local Bus
  • Square-pixel SVGA 640x480 (up to 1600x1200 in some games)
  • Very smooth hardware mouse cursors (SVGA)
  • 3D texture-mapping and Gouraud-shading
  • Bi-linear interpolation, MIP-mapping, Z-buffering, perspective-correction
  • In-game toggleable/configurable Anti-aliasing
  • 16-bit hi-color (65,536 colors): only in hi-res
  • FMV cinematization via CD-ROM
  • TV-quality MPEG playback
  • 16-bit digital sound effects/speech, CD-quality music
  • Dolby Pro Logic Surround Sound
  • IPX & TCP/IP networking as a standard feature in several genre
  • 28.8-33.6 baud modems / 16550 UART
  • On-line manuals (HTML hyperlinked manuals that run in browsers)
  • In-game manuals with hyperlinks
  • Marquee selection
  • Joysticks: Thustmaster FCS MK II, MS Sidewinder 3D
  • 8-button Gravis GrIP-Pad & Gravis GrIP MultiPort PC-Game Controller Interface

In 1996 many PC gamers had Pentium 100 MHz CPUs, 16 megs of RAM and 8 megs of vRAM. Serious gamers had 17" Trinitron or Diamondtron CRTs or greater. By year's end many PC gamers had 200 MHz CPUs and 64 megs of RAM.

MS-DOS 6.22 of 1994 was still extremely strong as a computer-game OS in 1996. In fact, so was MS-DOS 5.0 of 1991. Only two games in this list are Windows-exclusive. As a gaming OS Windows 95 of 1995 had not yet hit its mark; it had more overhead than MS-DOS and its APIs were not yet robust enough.

On the other hand, hardware mouse cursors, icon-driven GUIs, on-install benchmarking, auto-detection procedures and interface library middleware made DOS games much easier to install than in the past.

In case the reader is lost already, examples of middleware include the Miles Design and HMI audio setup utilities.

Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0 in 1996 (a great OS; much better than 3.xx and 95), but Diablo is the only game in this list that officially supports NT. Microsoft also released Direct3D in 1996, which was based on RenderMorphics' Reality Lab middleware of 1992.

In computer games software-rendered 3D was still common in 1996 but various chipset manufacturers released video cards in 1996 for 3D acceleration purposes, which were needed for running texture-mapped SVGA games at decent framerates (30 FPS in SVGA was considered good in 1996).

  • ATI released ATI 3D Rage (2D/3D acceleration)
  • S3 Inc. released S3 ViRGE (2D/3D acceleration)
  • 3Dfx Interactive released 3Dfx Voodoo1 aka Voodoo Graphics PCI (3D acceleration, Glide API)
  • Matrox released Matrox Mystique (2D/3D acceleration)
  • Rendition Inc. released Rendition Vérité 1000 (2D/3D acceleration, Speedy3D API)
  • VideoLogic released PowerVR (3D acceleration, DirectX 3.0, PowerSGL API)

In 1996 there were OEM versions of MechWarrior 2 for 3Dfx Voodoo, Matrox Mystique, VideoLogic PowerVR, S3 ViRGE and ATI 3D Rage/II.

3Dfx Interactive's Voodoo chips were integrated into Orchid Technology's Righteous 3D card of Oct. 1996 and Diamond Multimedia Systems' Monster 3D card of Nov. 1996 whereas VideoLogic's PowerVR PCX1 chip was integrated into VL's own Apocalypse 3D card of Dec. 1996.

Note that Voodoo1 did not support 2D graphics acceleration (that was added by Voodoo Rush of 1997 and Voodoo3 of 1999), but Voodoo1 did feature a pass-through connector cable that officially supported no fewer than 32 preexisting 2D video cards in 1996. [1]

Naturally, it would take some time before coders of PC games availed of 3D APIs and the chipsets listed above. For starters, Direct3D did not come out until June of 1996 (via DirectX 2.0 SDK), Rendition Vérité VQuake did not come out until Dec. of 1996, and GLQuake did not come out until January of 1997 -- and not for Direct3D but for SGI's OpenGL of 1991 (in case the GL prefix did not make that clear).

***

1996 was by and large an MS-DOS year; the last year of the mainstream command-line gamer.

Does anyone else miss the good ol' MS-DOS days, back when the command-line was King and the normies were watching sitcoms or twiddling their thumbs on console controllers, minding their own business instead of lobbying for the casualization of our hobby? You know, back before GoG and Steam let the riff-raff into our arena of gaming with their auto-installers for old games? You can read more about such odiousness in Reddit RPG Games.

The 1990s was such a great decade to be a computer-gamer. Everyone has fond memories of computer-gaming in 1990-1999, but no one with good taste looks back fondly on The Terrible 2000s that followed.


Needless to say, the King Computer Game of 1996 was Quake. However, it depends on what genre you prefer: WinG Civ2 was great, RTS was booming via expansions and the Jane's flight sims were utterly brilliant.

Almost every game listed below is 3D. And most 2D games of 1996 were pre-rendered in 3D due to the sheer size and scope of their art assets -- but also due to laziness and selling out. You'd be hard-pressed to find sprites hand-drawn by graphicians in games of 1996 -- the ignorant market had basically declared "3D new and good, 2D old and bad".

Especially hand-drawn 2D: "Pre-rendered sprites new and good, hand-drawn sprites old and bad". And yet nothing could have been further from the truth. And that goes for CGI versus cel animation and painted backdrops in full-length animated feature films as well (Pixar versus Disney's Golden Age).

And yes, in home computer-gaming 3D is almost as old as 2D, anyway. But we're talking about a ridiculous fad, here. The normies of 1996 thought 3D was revolutionary; they had absolutely zero computer-game pedigree. For them, everything began with their generation of gaming but the sad truth is that nothing good did.

The gushing over 3D by computer game journalists was cringe-worthy in 1996 -- too many of them wrote about 3D graphics as if it was invented in the mid 90s. Again, zero pedigree.

Speaking of ridiculous fads, note also how many mid-90s games have low-fidelity pre-rendered FMV-based titlescreens -- complete with generic lens flare effect! -- instead of immortal 2D artwork for their titlescreens. I'd say that FMV has aged poorly if it wasn't for that fact that it never looked good in the first place.


Remember when big PC games were commonly distributed on 8x disks from 1993-95? Well, by 1996 CD-ROM games were catching up thanks to the FMV fad: 6x CD-ROMs for Wing Commander 4. It must be a great game, right? -- I mean, 6x CD-ROMs!!! -- media that can get scratched, snapped or mistaken for frisbees or coffee-table coasters.

But at least the magnetic media games could be installed to the hard disk drive in their entirety -- no disk-swapping, no waiting for optical drives to spin up and seek -- unlike CD-based cinematic slop that was filled to the brim with footage of washed-up Hollywood actors "directed by" non-directors whose cinematic skills amounted to a complete and utter laughing stock when set against those of even third-rate Silver-screen directors.

PC versus PlayStation


Another negative influence on mid-to-late 90s PC games were the stinking CD-based 3D consoles; primarily Sony's PlayStation of September of 1995 (U.S. release date). PlayStation 2 U.S. release date was October of 2000. Thus, PlayStation hardware specs were locked-in for five years.


 IBM PC (1996) Sony PlayStation (U.S. 1995)
CPU 64-bit Pentium clocked at 100-200 MHz 32-bit R3000 34 MHz
MIPS 190 MIPS (Pentium 100 MHz) 30 MIPS (GTE 66 MIPS)
Cache 16K Level 1, 256-512K Level 2 4K instruction, 1K data
RAM 16-64 megs of EDO DRAM 2 megs of EDO DRAM
Video RAM 2-4 megs of VRAM 1 meg of VRAM
Fidelity VGA 320x200/240, SVGA 640x480 to 1600x1200 320x240, 512x240
Color depth 1-bit, 4-bit, 8-bit, 16-bit hi-color, 24-bit true-color Hi- & True-color
Audio 16-bit, 32-voice Roland, 11-voice Sound Blaster etc. 16-bit, 24 voices
Audio RAM 512K to 4 megs 512K
Controllers Kb/m, analog joystick, gamepad Controller
CD-ROM 6-speed to 12-speed CD-ROM drive Double-speed
Storage 2-4 gig EIDE hard disk drive (HDD) 128K SRAM cards
Media 5.25" floppy disk, 3.5" diskette, CD-ROM CD-ROM
Game Catalogue Stretches back to 1980; all genre represented Limited genre representation
Networking Serial, modem, LAN, IPX, TCP/IP: 16-player Deathmatch Link cable & multi-player adapter
Display High-bandwidth/scan-rate SVGA monitor Low-bandwidth TV/mon.

Some console owners may bleat like a lamb, "But PCs were more expensive!" Uh, yeah. But PCs had been standard home appliances since 1980; most middle-class families owned a powerful PC in the 90s. Also, what serious PC gamer would not have a powerful PC? And on top of that, the PlayStation was only a toy, it was not a tool that could be used for more than just playing games. PC gamers had been making their own games since 1980.

Many PC games came in big custom boxes with 200-page manuals and other stuff whereas PlayStation games came in CD-like jewel cases with little booklets.

Imagine elite 2D Amiga developers churning out 3D games for the piddling PlayStation... welcome to 1996. What a downgrade! And of course, their 2D Amiga games have stood the test of time much better than their poly-slop on PC and PlayStation.

Indeed, it is laughable to look back on most games of 1996: the FMVs, the pre-rendering, the polygon-pushing and the console-pandering -- it was shameless in its soullessness and selling out. Many big-budget 1996 games have been summarily scrap-heaped by history (and rightly so), but things only got much worse year after year, hand over fist.

By the mid 90s the texture-mapping fad had rendered spartan flat-shaded 3D redundant in the eyes of the slavering, salivating masses. An explanation for this factual statement can be found in the t-mapping article.

In addition, the market pushed for SVGA 640x480 games that commonly ran at 20-30 FPS over VGA 320x240 games that commonly ran at 50-60 FPS. You literally had chipset manufacturers boasting about 30 FPS in their ad-spam, echoed by clueless reviewers.

What that means is that 1996 PC gamers were often playing big-name, big-budget games at half the framerate of Atari 8-bit games dating back to 1980, most of which ran as smooth as silk.

And while I wouldn't go so far as to call 1996 PC gamers a bunch of brainwashed losers, imagine getting excited about 30 FPS poly-slop, low-res t-maps and blurry FMVs with generic lens flare effects that LightWave 3D on the Amiga was generating six years before.

If they deigned to acknowledge their existence at all ignorant computer game journalism of the mid 90s often looked down its collective snout at games that displayed in non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240 even though the code of such low-res games often banged VGA chipsets much harder than the code of hi-res SVGA games, most of which only displayed in higher fidelity -- they did little else with the chipset. Of course, the hypocritical hacks of mid 90s VIDYA mags usually had nothing but praise for low-res console games.

With all that said, can we conclude that 1996 was a good year for PC games? Yes, we can. There were enough PC-first or PC-exclusive games that came out in 1996; games that the PlayStation could not hope to host in its wildest dreams yet the PC could have easily hosted any PlayStation-exclusive. 1996 was still a good year to be a PC gamer.

Windows 95 DirectX 2 Games of 1996



In 1996 the first DirectX games (which were DirectX 2.0 games) came out for Windows 95; most notably: MechWarrior 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Monster Truck Madness, Need for Speed SE, Road Rash and Tom Clancy SSN [2]. In 1996 Microsoft expanded itself as a publisher of games that were developed by third-parties; this culminated in Age of Empires of 1997.

Sega Jumps on the Windows 95 Bandwagon



In 1996 Sega PC and Sega AM2 ported four big-name Sega Saturn games to Windows 95; namely, Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter (Windows 95 versions of Sega Rally, Virtua Cop 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 would follow in 1997). However, Panzer Dragoon was a joke, Daytona USA was eclipsed by PC-native Papyrus racers, on-rails Virtua Cop was a laughing stock in comparison to Quake, and 3D Virtua Fighter did not match the PC DOS versions of 2D Street Fighter 2 of 1992-96 or 2D Mortal Kombat of 1993-95.

***
 
Many games in this list are famous but there are a few that not many people would have heard of.

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. I also went out of my way to represent a few traditional 2D games.

List of 1996 PC Games






Mega Typhoon Amiga Nordlicht 1996:




NBA Live 97 IBM PC MS-DOS Hitmen Productions 1996:








Syndicate Wars IBM PC MS-DOS Bullfrog Productions 1996:


Tomb Raider IBM PC MS-DOS Core Design 1996:





Best 1996 Computer Games: Awards



Educational PC Games of 1996


By 1996 Disney Interactive had released three Activity Centers and Disney Software had released five Animated Storybooks whereas Living Books had released 15 Living Books and Brilliant Interactive Ideas had released seven Kidstorys. In 1996 Sierra On-Line released its fourth and final Dr. Brain game.

  • Amazon Trail Windows 95 MECC 1996
  • Amazon Trail II Windows PC The Adventure Company 1996
  • Beauty and the Beast Jones & Jones Multimedia Windows 3.x 1996
  • Disney's Activity Center: Toy Story Windows PC Disney Interactive 1996
  • Disney's Animated Storybook: Toy Story Windows PC Disney Software 1996
  • Disney's Animated Storybook: Hunchback of Notre Dame Windows PC Disney Software 1996
  • Freddi Fish 2 Windows PC Humongous Entertainment 1996
  • Fun School 5: Space Windows PC Europress Software 1996
  • Fun School 6: Fairyland Windows PC Europress Software 1996
  • Fun School 6: Magicland Windows PC Europress Software 1996
  • Kidstory: The Yukadoos Windows PC Brilliant Interactive Ideas 1996
  • Kidstory: There's a Dinosaur in the Garden Windows PC BII 1996
  • Living Books: Sheila Rae, the Brave Windows 3.x Living Books 1996
  • Living Books: Berenstain Bears in the Dark Windows 3.x Living Books 1996
  • Living Books: Green Eggs and Ham Living Books Windows 3.x 1996
  • Living Books: Stellaluna Living Books Windows 3.x 1996
  • Maths and English with Rayman: Vol. 1 PC DOS Ubi Soft Entertainment Software 1996
  • Maths and English with Rayman: Vol. 2 PC DOS Ubi Soft ES 1996
  • Maths and English with Rayman: Vol. 3 PC DOS Ubi Soft ES 1996
  • Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion Windows PC LucasArts 1996
  • Pajama Sam Windows 3.1/95 Humongous Entertainment 1996
  • Putt-Putt and Pep's Balloon-o-Rama PC DOS Humongous Entertainment 1996
  • Reader Rabbit's Interactive Reading Journey 2 Windows PC The Learning Company 1996
  • Reader Rabbit's Reading Development Library 3 Windows PC TLC 1996
  • Reader Rabbit's Reading Development Library 4 Windows PC TLC 1996
  • Time Warp of Dr. Brain Windows 3.x Sierra On-Line 1996 ("Dr. Brain 4")
  • Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego Windows PC Broderbund 1996
  • Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego Macintosh Broderbund 1996
  • Word Munchers Deluxe Windows PC MECC 1996
  • Zoombinis Logical Journey Broderbund Windows PC 1996

[1] 3Dfx Voodoo1 2D-card pass-through compatibility in 1996 (2D graphics acceleration cards):
Actix Graphyica Engine Ultra 64 (S3 968), Actix Picasso 64+ PCI (IGS IGA1682), ATI Graphics Pro Turbo (ATI Mach64), ATI Mach 32 (ATI Mach 32), Boca PCI VGA (CL-GD5430), Boca Superx VGA PCI (CL-GD-5430), Diamond Speedstar 64 (Cirrus Logic 5434), Diamond Stealth 3D 2000 (S3 ViRGE), Diamond Stealth 64 Video 2001 (S3 Trio64V+), Diamond Stealth 64 PCI (S3 964), Diamond Stealth Video 868 (S3 868), Diamond Viper (Weitek 9001), Diamond Viper Pro Video (Weitek 9100), Hercules Graphite Terminator (S3 Trio64), Hercules Stingray PCI (AL-62301), Jazz Jakarta (ET4000/W32P), Matrox MGA II (IS Atlas R1), Matrox Millenium (MGA IS-Storm R2), microVIDEO 20TD Live! (ET4000/W32P), Number 9 FX VISION 330 (S3 Trio 64), Number Nine GXE64 Pro (S3 964), Orchid Fahrenheit 64 (S3 864), Orchid Fahrenheit Video 3D (S3 ViRGE), Orchid Kelvin 64 PCI (Cirrus Logic 5434), Orchid Kelvin Video 64 (Alliance 6410), Orchid Fahrenheit Pro 64 (S3 964), Paradise Barbados 64 (S3 964), S3 Trio 64+ o/b (S3 Trio 64), S3 ViRGE Inc. 3D o/b (S3 ViRGE), STB Nitro (CL-GD5434), STB Powergraph Pro PCI (S3 SDAC), Trident TGUI 9440 (TGUI 9440).

[2] DirectX 2 games of 1996 on Windows 95:

  • Close Combat Windows 95 Atomic Games 1996 (DX1/2) (MS)
  • Daytona USA Windows 95 Sega AM2 1996 (DX2 req. for scaling)
  • Deadly Tide Windows 95 Rainbow Studios / TRG Inc. 1996 (MS)
  • Hellbender Windows 95 Terminal Reality 1996 (MS)
  • MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat Windows 95 Activision Studios 1996
  • Microsoft Flight Simulator for Windows 95 (6.0) Windows 95 Microsoft 1996 (MS)
  • Microsoft Soccer Windows 95 Lobotomy Software 1996 (Microsoft Football) (MS)
  • Monster Truck Madness Windows 95 Terminal Reality 1996 (MS)
  • NBA Full Court Press Windows 95 Beam Software 1996 (MS)
  • Need for Speed Special Edition Windows 95 EA Canada 1996
  • Road Rash Windows 95 Buzz Puppet Productions 1996
  • Tom Clancy SSN Windows 95 Virtus Corporation 1996
  • War Wind Windows 95 DreamForge Intertainment 1996

MS appended = published by Microsoft.

cf.

PC Games 1987 PC Games 1991 PC Games 1995
PC Games 1988 PC Games 1992PC Games 1996
PC Games 1989 PC Games 1993 Decade of 1990-99
PC Games 1990 PC Games 1994 PC Game Reviews

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