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

1990 PC Games

This is a curated list of PC games that came out in 1990. 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.

This is the first part of a series of articles that covers the strongest years of the 1990s:

1990 was one of the strongest years of the decade on average and therefore one of the best ever years to be a computer-gamer, but its peaks were not as high as the peaks of 1991.

Most PC gamers of 1990 would reflexively cite Origin Systems' Wing Commander and LucasFilms' Loom and Monkey Island as the best games on offer in 1990, but Dynamix's Red Baron, Access Software's LINKS and MPS Labs' Railroad Tycoon are technically advanced grognard games with better gameplay and more replay value, which puts them on another level. On top of that, Railroad Tycoon has educational value and is the most engrossing game of 1990.

Note that all of the above are of U.S. origin and Loom, SoMI and Railroad Tycoon are EGA-firsts. Note also that half of the above came out in late 1990.

In 1990 the PC had finally caught up to Amiga graphics of November of 1986 via Sierra On-Line's VGA-based King's Quest V of November 1990. However, all the year through the Amiga smashed the PC to smithereens in arcade-action genre, both in terms of gameplay and audiovisuals. The Amiga hosted at least one score king-tier action games for which the PC had no answer, but there is one notable exception in that PC Golden Axe is arguably superior to the Amiga version, both of which thrash the Atari ST version.

In 1989 heavy research in VGA-chipset cloning had been conducted by third parties, resulting in competitive cost-reduction and consolidation of VGA chipsets by 1990, yet it would take two more years for VGA games to start scrolling and sprite-shifting to the point of evoking Amiga games. An important distinction to make is that it is one thing to display quality graphics and quite another to move such graphics around smoothly, especially as on-screen action scales.

In computer games static art assets are as nothing in comparison to art that moves. Any tinkering twaddler can call up and switch between static images, but it takes A Master of Assembly to move dozens of collision-capable objects over parallax playfields at 50 FPS, replete with on-impact sampled sounds that trigger when projectiles and objects intersect, along with booming explosions, crackling lightning and music from the future.

Make no mistake, in 1990 2D VGA game graphics were not yet on par with 2D Amiga game graphics, such as those of the aptly-named Unreal by Ordilogic. In fact, in terms of color palette, scrolling and artistry no 2D action game on PC could match the likes of Unreal, Agony or Beast within a time-frame of historical relevance. Indeed, it is arguable that the PC never matched the level of audiovisual soul that immortalized the Amiga by 1986.

Remember that by 1988 the Amiga had already hosted one dozen arcade-action games that ran at 50 FPS, which means coinop-quality scrolling and sprite-shifting. And in 1989 the Amiga added twenty more to its repertoire. Stock Amiga 500s of 1987 (7 MHz / 512K of RAM) were super-scrolling in eight directions at 50 FPS in 1989 (Rock 'n Roll) whereas PCs were not doing that until 1994 -- and only via 468DX2 66 MHz CPU, 4 megs of RAM and VESA Local Bus. In other words, it took no less than monster-PCs to match Amiga 2D prowess from six years earlier.

It is also notable (for the PC) that id Software's Commander Keen of 1990 scrolled at 40 FPS in EGA via Carmack code. It would have been nice to see id Software try their hand at coinop-style VGA games in the following years, but we got Doom instead.

As for ST/Amiga contenders to the throne of 1990, only jingling jesters could overlook --

Tony Crowther's Captive
Shaun Southern's Lotus
Peter Molyneux's PowerMonger
Paul Woakes' Damocles
Eric Matthews' Speedball 2
Sean Cooper & Kevin Donkin's Flood
Chris Sorrell's James Pond
George Allan's Venus the Flytrap
Andrew Braybrook's Rainbow Islands and Paradroid 90

-- ten king-tier games from the U.K. that were not available on PC in 1990. And only four would ever get ported to PC -- one of them three years later and another a full six years later.

1990 also saw PC/Amiga ports of Singleton's Midwinter of 1989, which is a masterpiece of ST and U.K. origin.

In addition, Captive and Chaos Strikes Back of 1990 on the Amiga were much better than cRPGs released for PC in 1990. Indeed, I would take Captive over each and every Gold Pox game that was greedily churned out between 1988 and 1993 in order to cash-in on the AD&D fad.

In the late 80s and early 90s it seemed as if most PC gamers thought of nothing more than of SSI cRPG slop and Sierra scribble slop, yet Amigans thought of nothing less than of soulless spam from the States.

Thank god for British, German and French games on ST/Amiga!

Last but not least, one would be remiss to omit the Commodore 64 of 1990 since C64 Turrican by Trenz is equal to Amiga Turrican by Schmidt. Indeed, Turrican was a bigger flex for the C64 than it was for the Amiga, contrary to what biased Amigans with no 8-bit pedigree will tell you. That said, both versions are utterly superb. It's just that when an 8-bit version of a game practically matches the 16-bit version, I am inclined to favor the former.

Nonetheless, I would say that the Amiga comes out on top in 1990 because there is enough to satisfy grognards, coinop champions and those seeking something different, whereas the PC hosted the best adventure games, WWI-era flight sims and golf sims yet seen and by far, but had nothing much to offer arcadians or aficionada of niche genre and hybrids.

That said, the King computer game of 1990 was Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon on IBM PC MS-DOS.

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