Games released in 1990

In Blitzkrieg: Battle at the Ardennes, you’re not just playing a wargame — you’re being handed a clipboard, a stack of orders, and a freezing cold battlefield in 1944. This 1990 DOS title lets you relive one of W...

Blood Money (1990) answers the question: what if every level in a shoot-'em-up was a different kind of sci-fi fever dream? You fly through alien-infested caverns, collect cash, and try not to get obliterated by things that look li...

Forget missiles—Blue Max: Aces of the Great War takes you back to when air combat meant leather helmets, canvas wings, and a healthy fear of gravity. Released in 1990 for DOS, it’s a flight sim that drops you into WWI&...

It’s Boggle (1990, DOS), the digital version of everyone’s favorite game where you try to spell long words while your friend keeps shouting “DOG” over and over. The game board is a 4x4 grid of letters, and ...

If gravity had a sense of humor, it would look like Bounce Zone. This 1990 DOS oddball is part platformer, part physics experiment, and part unintentional comedy. You bounce. A lot. Off walls, enemies, your own ego. Precision is o...

In the 25th century, bureaucracy is still awful—but now you also have laser guns. Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday is a surprisingly solid sci-fi RPG that blends space opera drama with crunchy tactical combat. Think Dungeo...

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a grave-robbing dwarf with a flair for interior dungeon decoration? Cadaver grants that peculiar wish. As Karadoc, you’ll wander an eerie fortress filled with traps, puzzles, and enough...

The sequel nobody asked for, but we’re still kinda glad happened. California Games 2 adds even weirder sports: jet-skiing, hang gliding, and bodyboarding, which is like surfing but with less dignity. The graphics are improve...

In Captain Comic 2: Fractured Reality, our fearless spandex-wearing space explorer returns—but this time, he's bouncing between dimensions like a malfunctioning microwave. The graphics are more colorful, the enemies slightly...

Remember those endless, hypnotic tile-matching games before Candy Crush hijacked your aunt’s phone? Cascade was already there, dropping blocks and breaking combos like it invented the genre. The visuals are neon, the gamepla...

In Castle Master, you get dropped into a spooky polygonal castle and told, “Figure it out.” And that’s it. Early 3D graphics make every wall look like it was painted by a cubist on a deadline, but it works. You e...

Also known as The Crypt, Castle Master 2 is like the goth sibling of the first game—darker, moodier, and with more corpses lying around. The gameplay’s pretty much the same: wander, puzzle, zap ghosts with your third e...

Castlevania, originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986, was developed and published by Konami. The game was known in Japan as Akumajo Dracula (Devil's Castle Dracula) and was later renamed Castlevania for i...

Rome wasn’t built in a day—but you’ll conquer it in one afternoon. Centurion (1990) lets you play as a Roman commander with delusions of grandeur and a thing for elephants. From Senate politics to gladiator games...

Before Indiana Jones had a whip, Chagunitzu had block puzzles. Released in 1990 by Softdisk (and developed by a young John Romero), this game is a precursor to God of Thunder and part of the Kroz lineage. You navigate tombs, avoid...

Champions of Krynn is a RPG released in 1990 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) and is the first game in the Dragonlance Gold Box series. It is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset and set in the world of Krynn, ...

Circuit's Edge is a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Infocom. It was released in 1990 for MS-DOS. Set in a dystopian future, Circuit's Edge takes place in the fictional city of R...

Imagine being a bouncing ball in a series of floating sky islands full of monsters, traps, and puzzles. Welcome to Cloud Kingdoms, where the laws of physics politely take a backseat. The graphics are whimsical, the gameplay is wei...

Colorado (1990, DOS) drops you into the buckskin boots of a rugged frontiersman navigating the Wild West with guns, canoes, and questionable hygiene. Equal parts action and exploration, it feels like someone mashed together Oregon...

Before Command & Conquer, there was Command HQ (1990, DOS/Mac)—an early RTS that said “what if we made World War III playable?” It’s global domination meets real-time tactics, minus the explosions and p...

Commander Keen 1: Marooned on Mars is a platform video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1990 as shareware for MS-DOS. The game follows the adventures of an eight-year-old genius named Billy Bl...

In Commander Keen 2: The Earth Explodes, the stakes go from “oops, stranded on Mars” to “uh-oh, Earth is doomed.” The Vorticons have planted death lasers in orbit (as you do), and only one 8-year-old with a...

Commander Keen 3: Keen Must Die! is the kind of title that makes you wonder what this kid did to tick off an entire alien race. After foiling their plans twice, Keen takes the fight to the Vorticon home planet, where enemies are s...

Conflict is a turn-based war game where you get to play Commander-in-Chief and yell at your virtual generals when things go wrong (which they often do). It's part military sim, part lesson in frustration, with menus nested inside ...

Conqueror is what happens when a tank simulator and an arcade game go on a date and forget their purpose. You drive a tank in a pseudo-3D landscape, blow up stuff, and command squads like a battlefield conductor with no baton. It&...

In Conquests of Camelot: The Search for the Grail, you don’t just play King Arthur—you earn your role as the guy in charge of finding a cup with magical healing powers while everyone else mysteriously becomes “bu...

Cougar Force feels like the ’80s exploded into a side-scrolling action game. Big guns, big hair, and bigger explosions define this run-and-gun romp where subtlety is for other people. You’ll blow through enemies, jump ...

In Countdown, the clock is always ticking—literally. This spy thriller adventure drops you into a web of international intrigue, shady characters, and puzzles that don’t care you’re on a deadline. Fail to crack t...

Crime Time blends point-and-click adventure with a murder mystery that’s as much about wit as it is about clues. You play an innocent man framed for murder, scrambling to gather evidence and clear your name before time runs ...