In conjunction with the ascendance of graphics chip maker 3Dfx, with Quake, games became not only three-dimensional, their textures were also greatly improved. One of the best-looking games ever to be released, Quake introduced us to true 3D gaming. Popular among women gamers, The Sims spawned a veritable deluge of offshoots. While this sounds like torture to many of us, the game was extremely successful. Having experienced success with the various Sim City titles, The Sims was unique: rather than managing cities, players got to manage the lives of their onscreen counterparts-everything from bathroom breaks to waking up and going to work. Released in 2000, The Sims, created by Maxis, took the gaming world by storm. The gameplay itself was so addictive that players often played the game through three times just to experience it from the perspective of all three races. Players could choose from one of three races: the insectlike Zerg, the interstellar "everymen" Terrans, and the high-tech Protoss. With a great multiplayer mode, Starcraft's single player (or campaign) mode was both long and compelling. While the debate raged as to whether Starcraft was the best real-time strategy (RTS) title up to that time, the fact remained that with Starcraft, Blizzard did a great job of sticking to the RTS formula that was heralded in by Warcraft and Command and Conquer. Often compared to the various Warcraft and Command and Conquer titles that preceded it, Starcraft had some pretty large anticipatory shoes to fill. If not for Half-Life, one could say that we wouldn't have had other great story-based shooters, such as Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. Playing as Gordon Freeman, Half-Life felt more like taking the lead role in a well-written action movie. In an era when the world of shooters was dominated by online titles such as Quake II, Half-Life offered gamers an amazing story-based experience.
At the time, however, we had no idea that it would change the first-person shooter genre forever. When it was first released in 1998, gamers knew that Half-Life was going to be a great game.