It's hit and miss. In the newsgroups, fans appear dazed and confused, with loyalties being tested to the limits as new wonders make their way to the retail shelves. Flame-war threads which normally would be long and angry have lost their character. It seems arguing over whether Shogo , Sin , Half-Life , Thief , Quake II , Klingon Honor Guard , Forsaken or Heretic II is the best is more like splitting hairs between a range of excellent choices in a genre that lacked just that in years past. The same is true in the Strategy camp which has been flooded with titles.
Sports too has their share, including hunting galore.
CRPG's have seen a new renaissance this year with a pool of quality games, if not so overwhelming in quantity. With all this swirling about, it's time for a Roundup. For those in the know, this piece will not be a surprise. Half-Life , being touted the best game of 1998 by some, swamped the newsgroups with praise and frustration. One of the many problems that cropped up was that the registration verification program checked the files on the hard-disk against those of the CD each time to make sure no files had been modified, in order to prevent piracy or cheating with altered code, and thus refuse to run the game.