The Games of 1999

What a Year...

Well, 1999's been quite a year. A President who's had more jokes made about him than all past Presidents combined, Canada might be finally growing itself a backbone when it comes to dealing with Quebec and there's trouble in the East again. But we don't want to bring all that back up, now do we? After all, the reason we immerse ourselves in games is to get a break from everyday life. Considering that FiringSquad's first full year has passed, we've decided to do a nice little roundup of all the top games we reviewed this year. They're neatly divided into 7 loose genres for your perusal.

The Categories Are...

Action: Console style shooters, 3rd person games, giant robot sims, and space fighters fit in here. If it has too many explosions but not a first person perspective, it's an action game. 1999 has been generous to the genre with more entries than in the last two years - some may perhaps become classics to join the likes of Raptor, Pitfall and MechWarrior 2.

Adventure: This once mighty collection of games with guaranteed sales has seen its popularity dwindle in recent years. The classic style games like Sierra's Space/Police/King's Quest series have all but disappeared. Last year we had Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 3 (Long Live Murray!) to hold us over - apparently the last of the traditional breed. So what does the new generation offer? Perhaps the beginnings of a rebirth, much like RPGs have enjoyed?

First Person Shooter: Lacking the long history of any of the other categories, First Person Shooters are an offshoot of Action games. Once dubbed as mere mindless killing games, they've come a long way since then. 1999 has been a particularly fruitful year, no matter what kind of shooter you like!

Role-Playing Games: Once thought to be on the same track as Dinosaurs, Roleplaying Games have made a comeback in grand fashion - traditional and new style RPGs both made strong showings. We doubt that many of you will be surprised by our choices at all.

Simulation:Comprised of both management and flying games, the simulations category was in the past revolutionized by games like Falcon 3.0 and SimCity. While the genre has hardly been re-defined, it's certainly been improved on quite a bit this year.

Sports: This is a fairly quiet world in recent years. EA makes game, EA makes game follow up next year. This year, however, the games giant has faced some competition from the Microsoft mammoth. A battle of the titans, shall we say? What are the results? Read on and find out.

Strategy: Wow! Did we ever have a lot to choose from here. Not only did a lot of strategy games come out, but they were good! Whether you like your strategy to be turn-based or real-time, historical, futuristic or contemporary, we've got the game(s) for you!

So the top games of '99, in categories, based on alphabetical order are...