Keith

Gods (Bitmap Brothers, 1991) lets you take on the role of Hercules in his quest to achieve immortality. Four guardians have invaded and usurped the citadel of the gods. The gods offer any hero who can succeed in retaking the citadel one favour. Every(!) single magazine that reviewed it, gave it a 90% or higher rating - and righfully so. Gods was gorgeous to look at, with brilliant design and graphics and great sound FX, however the controls were a bit hit and miss (clunky). But then again, you would look past that just for the sheer beauty of the levels and sprites. Other than Cinemaware and Lucasfilm, nobody could reach the level of the Bitmap Brothers when it came to game design and graphics. Into... the wonderful!

I know that Command and Conquer didn't start the real time strategy (RTS) genre, but it certainly feels like the gold standard, at least for the mid 90s to the early 2000s. Westwood Studios were an awesome team, also developing Dune, Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, etc. - but of course, their flagship was always the Command & Conquer series. I was never particularly good at RTS games, but titles like Dune 2 and Command & Conquer were just so incredibly awesome, it was simply a lot of fun to play them. They were easy to learn and get into, but hard to master. Exactly how games should be. Westwood Studios is listed in Guinness World Records for selling over 30 million (!) copies of Command & Conquer games worldwide. Average price for the game was around US$ 80, so that amounts to roughly a quarter billion dollars. Not bad for "just" a game.