Best 1990's Strategy Games on PC

Stella Pastoris

After the Third Flame Deluge, the Vatican launched the last handful of the faithful into the void.

After a thousand years Stella Pastoris, the ship’s AI, struggles to keep the crumbling vessel and the precious sleep chambers functioning. Damaged by a passing comet’s tail, the ship plunges towards the nearest world, a class E planet bathed in radiation from a nearby pulsar.

As the ancient reactor begins to fail, it is inevitable that the sleeping faithful will awaken. They will need food, shelter, and most of all…hope.

Build the means to supply the needs of the ever growing ranks of faithful, both material and spiritual
Face the Void, on Proxima death is certain…or is it?
Let your faith sustain you, or embrace science
Explore the world to find the scarce resources needed to survive
Research an alien world’s resources to face its dangers

Read More: Best 1990's Indie Games.

Stella Pastoris on Steam

Command HQ

This game is an ancient DOS-era RTS where you basically have to dominate the whole world, and you can do so through production of power. You fight people using your army and you can gain allies through diplomacy and positive foreign affairs. You can also do a one on one through a modem of some sort, I’m not sure if any newer ones will do the job but an old serial modem sure will. Good luck finding an RS-232 port on your post-2003 computer.

It reminds me a lot of Shadow President, however this game is 2 years older. TBH Shadow President is better, but this game isn’t bad and I get the same feel when I play this game as I would in Shadow President.

– Real player with 301.9 hrs in game

No problems on my win 7 laptop. Another game I bought since I haven’t fixed my main computer yet. A classic strategy game, though the AI is average at best. It’s great that you can rewatch the whole game you played, through a film session and see how the AI played. I didn’t notice any difference between the hardest difficulty and the 2nd easiest. You do have the ability to speed up or slow down the game. From playing the game and watching the films, you notice that the AI doesn’t priorities oil fields or air superiority, doesn’t organize its navy into a fleet, and also leaves its unit outside of the city for some reason. These flaws in the AI cause the game to be easy. However playing the allies in WW1 and WW2 can be challenging. There is multiplayer, but for most people it is too much of hassle to set it up. The game against the AI can be relatively short, probably 1 to 2 hrs at most. I would recommend the game a lot more if the AI was better, but can’t expecting much from a 17 MB game. I do think it is a good fun casual strategy game. I give the game a 6.5/10 for this version.

– Real player with 27.9 hrs in game

Command HQ on Steam

RoBoRumble

Warning: might be influenced by nostalgia

I’m really happy to have found this little gem on steam :)

I’ve lost my original CD over 10 years ago and never could get hold of a copy ever since

RoboRumble is a nice little strategy game that’s tough as nails and doesn’t hold your hand.

It’s difficulty can be quite overwhelming at first, if you aren’t prepared for the challenge.

Every one of the 31 missions of the solo campaign is kind of a puzzle on it’s own, figuring out a working strategy may take some time, but is all the more rewarding after all!

– Real player with 118.1 hrs in game

Read More: Best 1990's Indie Games.

At it’s core the game is kind of simple, you have a handful of propulsion types and maybe 8 guns (and that’s only during the endgame, when everything is researched). In 2017 some free-to-play smartphone apps have more variety ;). But the game gives you interesting missions to crack and it’s all about those “aha! I think I know how to win this one!” moments. There is a bit of odd character to this one - you are trying to win a government bid and your co-workers are a curious bunch, not to mention your competitor who might be playing dirty…or not, you are never quite sure.

– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game

RoBoRumble on Steam

Wager

I really want to give this a good review but I have only been playing for a bit (5h or so of play) and I think I am done? No progression, unlimited cash, most runs. If it goes no where then what is the point? I have done a few runs and it seems very limited in variety. ALso, fix the numbers, add notation or something to that at least we can see the big numbers. This game needs some work to be worth paying for.

– Real player with 3.0 hrs in game

Fun little game, needs lots more items and has some balancing issues and bugs

On my first game I have found Assembly Line + Stacking Use ‘em is very broken, add some above and below 10 free money and you can catapult into the stratosphere very quickly.

I ended up getting so much money I caused a buffer overflow plunging me into negative coin values XD

Would like to see more than 28 items, as you get to know all of them and which ones are useful and which are not very quickly.

Needs some more work to make the gameplay interesting for much longer than half an hour or so

– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game

Wager on Steam

Battlezone 98 Redux

Important disclosure here: Prior to the release of BZ98R (and still to this day), I have been a player of the original game up until it’s final unofficial patch version 1.5.2.27 U1. This game is entirely based on this community patch.

People who have played 1.5 are going to feel differently about the game than people who last played it 20 years ago (1.3, 1.31, 1.4…). The same goes for people who had never played BZ98 in any form prior to purchasing this game.

This review involves numerous statements of objective fact but it was still written by someone who was playing 1.5 for years prior to the release of this game.

– Real player with 8710.2 hrs in game

This is the best game you’ve never played. It’s the hidden gem of hidden gems.

Set in an alternate 1960s where the space race is just a cover for a cold war turned hot, the United States and Soviet Union secretly deploy massive armies into space in pursuit of an extra-terrestrial substance, bio-metal, that can be used to craft amazing and powerful weapons of war. The National Space Defense Force (NSDF) and Cosmos Colonist Army (CCA) do battle over control of the bio-metal throughout the solar system using hover tanks crafted from the precious material. Battlezone has some of the best sci-fi lore of any game- don’t skip over the briefings and debriefings!

– Real player with 321.0 hrs in game

Battlezone 98 Redux on Steam

STAR WARS™ Rebellion

This is and will remain one of my favourite games of all time, I still play it now and the game time I have logged is a fraction as I’ve only had the it in my steam library for a 3-4mths, I’ve been playing it for years.

It costs less than a pint of beer, infact you could buy a copy for you and a mate for the price of a pint.

Is it for everyone, no.

People who want modern graphics, walk away. (for the old skool SW fans, you’ll see some unique artwork.)

People who want fast paced, walk away.

People who think their Jedi are going to be a super weapon, walk away.

– Real player with 224.0 hrs in game

Star Wars: Rebellion is a classic grand strategy game that’s almost as old as I am, and it shows. A word of warning; many of the negative reviews here (rightfully) deal with issues regarding graphics and loading the game, which can be resolved with a bit of tweaking.

I played this game to death as a kid, even though a lot of my success in it was the result of endless hours of trial and error; the learning curve is perhaps the steepest in video game history, there’s no tutorial, and everything that’s thrown at you can be overwhelming even for people who are familiar with grand strategy titles (a PDF scan of the old instruction booklet can be found in the folders, though). Likewise, while the graphics might have been cutting-edge in 1998, they’re… lackluster nowadays.

– Real player with 161.3 hrs in game

STAR WARS™ Rebellion on Steam

The Tower Of TigerQiuQiu 2

playing this game is a lot like life. all kinds of ups and downs. but at the end of the day. its the games that work that count. and tigerio, what a beautiful figure.

– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game

The Tower Of TigerQiuQiu 2 on Steam

Warage