So I managed to make it halfway through the decade. And if I’m being honest, as much as I enjoy going through the stuff of this decade, it starts to take a toll on me. I’ve been slowing down too much doing this stuff, and I’m positive I’m not going to be able to maintain an adequate pace to get this whole project finished in an acceptable amount of time (within a decade, as in getting one post done per month, excluding highlights).
What I’m saying is, expect these posts to be made less frequently, and in a less organized manner. I may just start skipping through a few months and/or years just because there’s a particular month of a particular year I want to cover ahead of time for a specific reason. Likely because of some film or game that was released at that point that I’m interested in either revisiting, visiting for the first time, or just want to see how outstanding that particular month was.
In any case, I believe I’ve proved to myself that just the first half of the 90s decade alone is better than anything we’ve gotten within the past 10 years combined. Lamentations of an age gone by that I lived through. I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old. But at least I’m maintaining some amount of immaturity (ie keeping the 90’s kid in me alive), hopefully at a healthy level. If nothing else, just the years 1990-1991 kicked loads of ass in just the film industry alone. 1993-4, those were kicking ass in the game industry. As for music, great stuff in each year. TV shows… well… I knew ahead of time those were going to be the one thing that aged the worst, excluding some animated programing.
My rose-tinted goggles haven’t made be blind to the signs of anti-white and pro-SJW culture that were gaining traction during this decade (not that it was entirely absent ever since the late 1960s, if not earlier), but at least it’s not as blatant and terrible as it has been for the past decade. We just didn’t know any better back then. We had no idea how bad this joke of a culture was going to get, even while we were laughing at it. But in all fairness, we didn’t know how much of a handicap that culture was getting. The game was rigged by corporate/banking/investment assholes well before the 90s even started. It’s just interesting now that I have more knowledge and the benefit of hindsight to see how far along it was at that time.
But having lived through those years in my youth, I have the benefit of remembering the good times and the good stuff that, for me, offset the bad. So on that, here’s some highlights that made 1994 worth remembering.
Music
Really hated making the cuts I did to keep this down to 30 entries.
Alice in Chains: Jar of Flies (January)
Green Day: Dookie (February)
Album of the year.
Beck: Mellow Gold (March)
Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral (March)
Soundgarden: Superunknown (March)
Collective Soul: Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid (March)
Cheap Trick: Woke Up with a Monster (March)
Pantera: Far Beyond Driven (March)
Running Wild: Black Hand Inn (March)
The Offspring: Smash (April)
Live: Throwing Copper (April)
Weezer: Weezer (May)
Seal: Seal, aka Seal II (May)
Beastie Boys: Ill Communication (May)
Stone Temple Pilots: Purple (June)
Hootie & the Blowfish: Cracked Rear View (July)
Marilyn Manson: Portrait of an American Family (July)
Newsboys: Going Public (July)
Bruce Dickinson: Balls to Picasso (July)
Savatage: Handful of Rain (August)
Barenaked Ladies: Maybe You Should Drive (August)
Toadies: Rubberneck (August)
Rusted Root: When I Woke (August)
Corrosion of Conformity: Deliverance (September)
Dave Matthews Band: Under the Table and Dreaming (September)
The Cranberries: No Need to Argue (October)
John Anderson: Country ’til I Die (October)
Korn: Korn (October)
Tom Petty: Wildflowers (November)
Bush: Sixteen Stone (December)
Movies
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (February)
Blue Chips (February)
Reality Bites (February)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (March)
Red Rock West (April)
The Crow (May)
Speed (June)
The Lion King (June)
The Shadow (July)
Forrest Gump (July)
Angels in the Outfield (July)
True Lies (July)
The Mask (July)
Clear and Present Danger (August)
Killing Zoe (August)
Natural Born Killers (August)
Quiz Show (September)
The Shawshank Redemption (September)
Ed Wood (September)
Hoop Dreams (October)
Pulp Fiction (October)
Film of the year.
Clerks (October)
The Last Seduction (October)
Stargate (October)
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (November)
The Santa Clause (November)
The Professional, aka Léon (November)
Disclosure (December)
Dumb and Dumber (December)
Little Women (December)
Games
I couldn’t in good conscience bring this down to 30 entries. So I’m listing 40 highlights. This year did the impossible. It rivals last year’s game releases, maybe even surpasses it.
Dune: The Battle for Arrakis (January)
Mega Man X (January)
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (February)
Sub-Terrania (March)
Mega Turrican (March)
Castlevania: Bloodlines (March)
X-COM: UFO Defense (March)
Game of the year. Would you expect me to give my favorite game of all time anything less?
Beneath a Steel Sky (March)
Super Metroid (April)
Sid Meier’s Colonization (April)
Panzer General (April)
Robocop versus the Terminator (May)
Shining Force CD (June)
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (July)
Star Wars: TIE Fighter (July)
Contra: Hard Corps (August)
Ecco: The Tides of Time (August)
Breath of Fire (August)
Aerobiz Supersonic (August)
Fatal Fury 2 (September)
Blackthorne (September)
Illusion of Gaia (September)
Super Punch-Out!! (September)
Master of Magic (September)
System Shock (September)
Killer Instinct (October)
Earthworm Jim (October)
Shining Force II (October)
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (October)
Counting both games as one entry, just because.
R-Type III: The Third Lightning (October)
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons (?)
Final Fantasy III, aka Final Fantasy VI (October)
Doom II: Hell on Earth (October)
Under a Killing Moon (October)
Snatcher (November)
Donkey Kong Country (November)
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (November)
Bust-A-Move (December)
The Need for Speed (December)
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (December)
Shows
Ancient Mysteries (January)
TekWar (Janaury)
The Critic (January)
Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego? (February)
Disney’s Aladdin the series (February)
Duckman (March)
The Busy World of Richard Scarry (March)
Mysteries of the Bible (March)
Sister, Sister (April)
Space Ghost Coast to Coast (April)
All That (April)
Inside the Actors Studio (June)
My So-Called Life (August)
Bump in the Night (September)
ReBoot (September)
The Magic School Bus (September)
The Tick (September)
Party of Five (September)
Chicago Hope (September)
ER (September)
Touched by an Angel (September)
Friends (September)
Show of the year, though I am not proud in giving this series that award.
Wild C.A.T.S (October)
The Secret World of Alex Mack (October)
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters (October)
Gullah Gullah Island (October)
Gargoyles (October)
Essence of Emeril (November)
Spider-Man (November)
The Head (December)
The Anomalous Host 