I’ve often heard podcasters and other videogame journalists discuss 1998 in reverant tones. To hear many people talk about it, all the most amazing older games were released in 1998, and no year since has had such an amazing list of titles.

Let’s take a look at what games were actually released in 1998. Baldur’s Gate. Half-Life. StarCraft. Ocarina of Time. Metal Gear Solid. Thief: The Dark Project. Grim Fandango. Fallout 2. Resident Evil 2. That’s eight legendary titles, five of which launched their own very successful game franchises, the other three being sequels in successful game franchises. When you add Rainbow Six, Unreal, Banjo-Kazooie, and Final Fantasy Tactics into the mix, 1998 was one impressive year.

So let’s take a look at the decade between then and now and try to figure out whether 1998 is truly as good as it seems to have been. A sort of software release year death match, if you will.

1999.

Prince’s party year gave us Silent Hill, Planescape: Torment, Everquest, System Shock 2, Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, and Super Smash Bros. for the N64. Not bad, but certainly no 1998. We also got Descent, Final Fantasy VIII, Ultima: Ascension, and Donkey Kong 64.

2000.

The Y2K year brought us The Sims, Deus Ex, Diablo 2, Baldur’s Gate 2, Thief 2, Icewind Dale, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Vagrant Story, MechWarrior 4, Final Fantasy IX, and Majora’s Mask. A pretty good haul, but only two franchise-starters. Diablo 2 and Baldur’s Gate 2 were certainly both huge, but it’s no 1998. Sacrifice, Chrono Cross, Escape from Monkey Island, and The Longest Journey were also released in 2000.

2001.

The first year of the new milennium gave us Halo, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Max Payne, Ico, Arcanum, Grand Theft Auto 3, Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Solid 2, Advance Wars, Dragon Warrior VII, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy X, and the Throne of Bhaal expansion for Baldur’s Gate 2. Some good stuff, but it still can’t compete with 1998.

2002.

In 2002, we got Neverwinter Nights, Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, Battlefield 1942, Kingdom Hearts, Ratchet & Clank, Splinter Cell, Warcraft 3, Jedi Knight 2, Metroid Prime, and GTA: Vice City. Once again, slim pickings compared to 1998.

2003.

2003 brought us Beyond Good & Evil. Already sounding good. Also, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Deus Ex, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Galactic Civilizations, Fire Emblem, Wind Waker, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Max Payne 2, SimCity 4, Civilization 3, Silent Hill 3, Devil May Cry 2, Jak 2, and the first Call of Duty. Good year. Comes fairly close to 1998. But Prince of Persia, KotOR, and Deus Ex don’t match up to Baldur’s Gate, Half-Life, Starcraft, and Metal Gear Solid.

2004.

In 2004, World of Warcraft came out. Also, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Katamari Damacy, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Fable, Killzone, Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, City of Heroes, EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, Myst IV, The Sims 2, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Doom 3, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Metroid Prime 2, Silent Hill 4, Jak 3, Final Fantasy XI, and Unreal Tournament 2004. Lots and lots of releases. But in my opinion, the big ones don’t quite reach the caliber of the games released in 1998.

2005.

2005 might be the first year that’s a true contender to 1998. A bit part of that is that 2005 is when the Playstation 2 really reached its peak. I’m still of the opinion that the Playstation 2 might be the best game console ever. In 2005, we saw the release of Guitar Hero, Resident Evil 4, God of War, Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, Indigo Prophecy, Civilization IV, Doom 3, Lego Star Wars, Dungeon Siege 2, Killer7, Call of Duty 2, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Mario Kart DS, Destroy All Humans, Meteos, Lumines, Nintendogs, and Guild Wars. Guitar Hero, God of War, and the Lego games became big franchises. Resident Evil, Civ, Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, and Doom were already big game franchises. And there are some other excellent games in the mix too: Shadow of the Colossus, Psychonauts, Jade Empire, and Indigo Prophecy are big favorites of mine. It really is amazing how many of the good games in 2005 were Playstation 2 games.

The sheer volume of games blows 1998 away, especially considering that 2005 also saw the release of GTA: Liberty City Stories, The Matrix Online, Quake 4, Age of Empires 3, Dragon Quest VIII, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, and a couple Warioware games. Call me a heretic, but I’m willing to say that 2005 was at least the equal of 1998, and if you like enough of the abovementioned games, you might consider it superior. Let’s keep looking at later years.

2006.

2006 is when the current generation of consoles showed up. This brought us a great list of games including The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Gears of War, Oblivion, Okami, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Company of Heroes, Final Fantasy XII, Resistance: Fall of Man, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Titan Quest, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Prey, Chromehounds, Dead Rising, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Star Wars: Empire at War, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, Tomb Raider: Legend. The volume of games has gone way up. There were also a lot of sequels: Neverwinter Nights 2, Galactic Civilizations 2, LEGO Star Wars 2, Kingdom Hearts 2, Battlefield 2, Battle for Middle Earth 2, Guitar Hero 2, and Call of Duty 3. The Nintendo DS Lite also came out, and brought with it games like Metroid Prime Hunters, Brain Age, and New Super Mario Bros. Perhaps not quite as good as 2005, but the XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3 were still new.

2007.

In 2007, we saw some downright amazing games. My “best-of” list includes The Orange Box, BioShock, Rock Band, Mass Effect, Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Crysis, Assassin’s Creed, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, God of War 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Call of Duty 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and WoW’s Burning Crusade expansion. Those were the good ones. But there was also a lot of what I think of as fluff: The Witcher, Warhawk, Contra 4, Eternal Sonata, Heavenly Sword, The Darkness, Overlord, Lair, Stranglehold, Brain Age 2, Metroid Prime 3, Ratchet & Clank Future, Tabula Rasa, and Lost Planet. But even with the fluff, that first part of the list is seriously impressive for one year. It’s very hard to look at 1998 and make an argument that it was a better year than 2007.

2008.

2008 made 1998 its bitch. No More Heroes, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Space, Grand Theft Auto 4, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Metal Gear Solid 4, Super Smash Bros Brawl, Rock Band 2, De Blob, Sins of a Solar Empire, God of War: Chains of Olympus, Supreme Commander, Red Alert 3, Mario Kart Wii, Boom Blox, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Gears of War 2, Resistance 2, Valkyria Chronicles, Far Cry 2, Mirror’s Edge, Prince of Persia, Saints Row 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, and the second Penny Arcade game. You might not like every one of those games, but if you do like video games, there’s going to be more than one in that list that you like. The fluff games in 2008 included Too Human, Army of Two, Condemned 2, Dark Sector, Crysis Warhead, Devil May Cry 4, Haze, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Wii Music. Even those aren’t horrible.

2009.

So how does this year stack up to 2008, 2005, and 1998? We’ve got Dragon Age: Origins, Street Fighter IV, Uncharted 2, Borderlands, Modern Warfare 2, Demon’s Souls, Brütal Legend, Trine, Torchlight, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed II, Left 4 Dead 2, Scribblenauts, Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Resident Evil 5, Ghostbusters, Assault on Dark Athena, F.E.A.R. 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Muramasa, Prototype, inFamous, Wolfenstein, Fat Princess, Galactrix, Halo Wars, Killzone 2, Bowser’s Inside Story, MadWorld, Fl0wer, Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and the Punch-Out remake.

Wow. Just… wow. When you look at it this way, it becomes fairly clear that the quantity of games is going up, and the quality, while it may fluctuate from year to year, really isn’t going down. Very little fluff in 2009. The Conduit, Overlord 2, maybe Dead Space: Extraction and Muramasa. But even games like Bionic Commando and Still Life 2 seem pretty good, although I haven’t played either.

2010 is looking fantastic too, with games like Starcraft 2, Heavy Rain, No More Heroes 2, Alan Wake, God of War 3, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy XIII, and Alpha Protocol. Who knows what else will be announced?