100. SimAnt (Maxis, 1992)
Simcity went big, Simcity 2000 went bigger, SimEarth went much bigger and SimAnt goes... much smaller. As the name implies you control a virtual ant colony in a suburban backyard, gathering food, leaving scent trails to control the rest of your ants' behavior and avoiding hazards like antlions, spiders and being stepped on or sucked into the lawnmower. The "goal" when you're not in sandbox mode is to build up your colony enough to defeat the red ants occupying the same patch of grass. There's also a greater campaign mode which is essentially the same thing, having you slowly conquer not only the whole yard but the interior of the house too. I actually played quite a bit of this one as a kid; got to the point where I could rush the whole campaign in about ten minutes, actually. It's also noteworthy for the 170-page manual, of which only about 1/3 talks about the gameplay and mechanics, with the rest being a lot of very thoroughly-researched ant facts.
99. SimEarth: the Living Planet (Maxis, 1990)
Simcity was of course an enormous hit, so the next logical step was to go even bigger - simulating an entire planet's life cycle over the course of 10 billion years. By adjusting various conditions like tectonics, temperature and atmospheric conditions, the rate at which organisms grow and mutate, as well as calling down things like comets, meteors and plagues, you're basically just left to shape life on your planet however you like, either helping your organism grow, evolve and thrive into the nanotechnology age or just unleashing chaos upon them. There are some built-in scenarios too, having the player "win" by fulfilling some condition like terraforming Mars or saving the population from nuclear war or self-replicating robots. Wild stuff, and while it's a bit more abstract and much more complex than SimCity, the sheer ambition of it is pretty amazing for 1990.
98. MegaRace (Cryo Interactive, 1993)
The FMV game genre had a resurgence in the 90s with the advent of CD technology, allowing developers to record and encode videos (usually in very low quality) and stick some gameplay on top of them to create "interactive movie games" (also generally of very low quality). MegaRace stands out from the pack, though, on the merits of its strong presentation. While the game itself is a fairly standard combat racer, having the player destroy all the other cars on the track before time runs out, it's wrapped in a dystopian space-age game show hosted by sleazy corporate stooge Lance Boyle (played by Christian Erickson). Through that, it paints a picture of a zombie-like populace permanently enamored by trashy TV, though with a consistently sardonic and humorous tone that makes it quite an enthralling one to experience; not completely unlike Robocop. The great soundtrack by Stéphane Picq is certainly worth a listen in its own right too.
97. Simcity (Maxis, 1989)
The story of Simcity is a famous one - Will Wright developed "Raid on Bungeling Bay" for the Commodore 64, but had more fun designing maps with the editor than playing the game itself. Maps which were surprisingly intricate and realistically designed - there were plane runways and seaports, networks of roads and buildings, rivers and inlets and even boats doing supply runs between the islands, so it helped the game feel more dynamic and alive than most top-down shooters. Eventually he decided to take that idea and expand it into a full-fledged city planning and building simulation, and the end result was SimCity. It doesn't sound like a particularly fun game on paper - constructing your town while managing crime, pollution, traffic, sim health and entertainment - but its addictive design and random disastrous events like fires, floods, tornadoes and monster attacks kept it fresh and engaging. It has also since been made open-source (albeit under the name "Micropolis" due to copyright concerns) and ported to just about every platform imaginable, so you have no excuse not to check it out in some form!
96. The Incredible Machine (Jeff Tunnell Productions, 1993)
A puzzle game built on a great concept, having you solve various objectives using a collection of parts, each with unique properties and applications, to construct elaborate Rube Goldberg devices. So something as simple as "guide the mouse to the mousehole" can involve pulleys, rope, balloons, scissors, pipes and a springboard, and that's just one of hundreds of scenarios spread across the series. The first game later had an expanded release (The Even More Incredible Machine), two sequels that got expanded versions themselves, and a spiritual successor (Contraption Maker) that added even more goals to complete and parts to experiment with, so fans of logic puzzles had quite a lot to enjoy from this series.
95. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (Epic MegaGames, 1998)
Jazz Jackrabbit was pretty mind-blowing in its time, providing smooth scrolling and animation, fast paced gameplay and bonus stages reminiscent of Sonic, proving the PC really could do platformers with enough quality to rival their console counterparts. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 came out a few years later for Windows, adding numerous new mechanics like a ground-stomp and a slow descent a la Dixie Kong (or Earthworm Jim) and a second playable character in Spaz Jackrabbit, who has a double jump. Later revisions of the game also added a third playable character in Lori, who can dash through enemies; sadly she's also not able to complete every level as she simply can't reach some platforms the other two can. The game also features a multiplayer mode, with up to four players able to play on the same computer in splitscreen and up to 32 players can compete online in deathmatches, races, a Capture the Flag mode or collecting enough treasure and exiting the stage before everyone else.
Fun fact: The cutscenes in the game were animated by Dean Dodrill, who would go on to create one of my favorite metroidvanias, Dust: An Elysian Tail.
94. Atomic Bomberman (Interplay Productions, 1997)
Now here's an oddball game attached to a well-known license. Atomic Bomberman is an officially licensed Bomberman game, though it wasn't developed by Hudson Soft - instead, Interplay took the code base from Super Bomberman 3, gave the game an odd CGI art style and a techno soundtrack and added numerous voice quips by the likes of Charlie Adler and Billy West (including a number of
very profane ones buried on the disc, most likely so they wouldn't alienate a younger audience with a T or M rating). It's also notable for the fact that it lacks any kind of single player campaign - all you get is multiplayer versus mode against up to nine other humans or bots, both locally and over LAN or dialup. Definitely one of the more obscure and bizarre Bomberman games, but hey, it's pretty hard to mess up a classic.
93. The Dig (LucasArts, 1995)
Another adventure title from the legendary LucasArts, though unlike most, The Dig doesn't have a lot in the way of the company's quirky humor, opting to tell a more somber, serious and high-concept science fiction story. Starring a team of scientists unexpectedly whisked away to an alien world devoid of intelligent life but full of advanced technology, they set out to uncover exactly what led it to its current state and discover a way home. The Dig was also a very high-end production for its time, having surprisingly well-known actors voicing the main characters and some incredible atmospheric music by Michael Land.
92. Out of This World (Delphine Software, 1991)
Also known as "Another World", this was a game created from the get-go to be a Dragon's Lair-esque cinematic action adventure on a much lower budget. Utilizing vector graphics instead of drawn cels, the game's visual design had relatively little detail but very smooth animation, giving it a nicely cinematic flair regardless. The end result was certainly distinctive and memorable, adding a grim yet beautiful aesthetic to the game and its many, many death scenes. The gameplay was also quite solid, if heavily trial-and-error based as you tried to solve puzzles, evade enemies and figure out the correct sequence of events in order to survive another melee with aliens and see your way to the end of this strange tale.
91. Freedom Planet (GalaxyTrail, 2014)
Beginning life as a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame, Freedom Planet quickly turned into something grander - an homage to Sega Genesis era action games in general, working in elements of games like Rocket Knight Adventures and a dash of Treasure style action as well. There are three playable characters - Sash Lilac (who has a speed dash and a spinning cyclone), Carol Tea (who fights with short-ranged claw swipes and can ride a motorcycle that both makes her faster and gives her stronger attacks) and Milla Basset (who can hover for short distances as well as summon magical barriers and cubes, which serve as both projectiles and a short-ranged but powerful burst attack). The fast-paced action and fluid animation also fit the aesthetic perfectly, creating a game that's flashy and intense and whose puzzles don't intrude on the fast pace.
