5 Forgotten Computer Games Every Millennial Played

Millennials grew up in a time of rapid technological progress. We saw the internet connect the world in new ways, like emails instead of physical letters, and we saw computers become a regular item in households. With these home computers, millennial kids could play games that we would normally need a gaming console for. We experienced the boom of computer games when the replacement for floppy disks, the CD-ROM, came onto the scene.

CD-ROM games of the 1990s and early 2000s may not live up to the graphics and plots of today's games, but they were peak entertainment at the time. Every millennial, even those who would never be labelled as "gamers," played these computer games because they were a huge part of contemporary pop culture. These are the games that will hit millennials with nostalgia and make them say, "I can't believe I forgot about that!"

1. Backyard Baseball
2. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
3. ClueFinders
4. Myst
5. SimCity 2000

Backyard Baseball

After watching the 1993 film, The Sandlot, many millennials dreamed of building their own baseball team. The little-known game company, Humongous Entertainment, had the perfect answer: Backyard Baseball. Released in 1997, the first game of the popular Backyard Sports series allowed kids to pick a team from a diverse cast of neighborhood kids. And everyone knew that Pablo Sanchez was the G.O.A.T. of all players.

In 2024, exactly 27 years after its first release, the original Backyard Baseball was revived on Steam as Backyard Baseball '97. Steam also has several other Backyard Sports games, if you're dying to replay these sports games with personality.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Millennials with a soft spot for villains can trace that back to Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game. How could we not root for the bad guy when she was the coolest, sleekest art thief ever? Sure, the goal of the game was to hunt her and her V.I.L.E. henchmen down, but we all secretly admired her and that red trenchcoat.

The original game came in numerous formats when first released in 1985, but it was formatted as a CD-ROM for Mac in 1992 and Windows in 1994. An updated version was released on Steam in 2020, but if you want to play the original, you'll have to try websites like ClassicReload.com.

ClueFinders

An offering from The Learning Company, the ClueFinders series was puzzle-solving and academic games for 3rd to 6th graders. For kids who loved watching Scooby-Doo reruns on Boomerang, ClueFinders was perfect because we got to be part of solving each mystery. And the main characters, Joni, Leslie, Owen, and Santiago, seemed so cool that we didn't mind all of the learning we were doing.

The first game, The ClueFinders 3rd Grade Adventures: The Mystery of Mathra, was released in 1998, and the rest of the series continued until 2002. If you're looking to play these nostalgic games, or you'd like to introduce them to your kids, you're in luck! The Learning Services website offers a six-game ClueFinders bundle for $50.

Myst

Myst was a puzzle game targeted to adults, but like a lot of other '90s media, kids consumed it unsupervised. Of course, the game's difficulty dissuaded younger kids, but a few of the most stubborn millennials would play it almost out of spite. We gained skills in patience and logic from that spite, though, so it all worked out.

Myst was released in 1993, and even with the lag of the CD-ROM, it became one of the best-selling PC games for a decade because of its immersive world. You can get the remastered version on Steam for $35, with the graphics much improved.

SimCity 2000

Despite the title, SimCity 2000 was released in 1993, but it felt futuristic enough to be labelled as part of the new millennium. It was a first-of-its-kind simulation game where you built and managed cities, but you could also set disasters upon them, including alien invasions. What kid wouldn't revel in the god-like power and control this game provided?

One of the unique parts of SimCity 2000 was the arcologies, a combination of architecture and ecology, that were city-sized domes that Sim citizens lived in the future. It gave '90s kids such bright hopes for the future of environmentalism. You can purchase SimCity 2000 at the Microsoft Store site and Gog.com.

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