There have been some truly magnificent video games made over the past 20 years, but there are still definitely some true classics from before 2000.
Redditor carlstanza asked:
“What pre-2000 video game will always be a banger?”
Build Those Coasters
“Rollercoaster Tycoon 
“ -matuzo
“O how the theme park manager that wanted to kill and or trap guests till death came came out in all of us!” -Gomer428
“I made drinks free but toilets $100” -Brad_Breath
“The key was to make umbrellas cheap until is started raining. Then jack the price up to 15-20 bucks. Capitalism at its finest!” -chronoboy1985
“If I had guests who were angry I would drop them into a pit with entertainers and security guards. They could only leave if they were smiling. I didn’t want them to spread ill feelings about the park after all.” -Innercepter
“if you’re doing a mission that required a certain happiness rating, your best bet was to round up as many unhappy people as you can near the end and drop them in the lake. the trick was to kill them close to the end, so you didn’t get the safety violations dragging you down until after the mission cleared.” -skivian
“Zoo Tycoon, the original game was older than me and It genuinely was my childhood. It’s such a genuine shame you literally can’t access really anymore like Rollercoaster Tycoon. Microsoft just literally rerelease the game to be accessible everywhere and you’d make a killing.” -PyroTech11
Silos Needed!
“Command and Conquer Red Alert.”
“Granted it’s a slightly modded version I play still, but damn does it hold up nicely with a tight little community.” -schofield101
“Best. Soundtrack. Ever.” -DrainageSpanial
“I’m a mechanical, I’m a mechanical, I’m a mechanical man… that was the one my best mate use to run around and sing 
“
“Age of Empires was another favourite x” -pikachu_cat
Absolutely Diabolical
“Diablo. I remember being like 5-6 years old and absolutely terrified of the butcher. ‘Ahh fresh meat!’” -AFerretWithAHuge
“And the caves had a sick metal soundtrack.” -DrunkPole
“My brother and I would watch my dad play. We were too young to be “brave enough” to play past the opening church levels, so the Butcher and Leoric were about as far as we would ever go on our own.”
“My dad used us to farm too. I managed to get the timing down on the duplication glitch, so I would just get him stacks of gold, potions, and scrolls while he was at work.” -Jester04
“I miss that! Actually having strong emotional reactions to video games. They are so much more immersive when you’re a child.” -ElbowStrike
“Diablo 2 is alive and well (if you ignore the awful servers lol). I’m playing it right now haha”
“They just remade it in more modern graphics and added QoL upgrades. Player base is extremely active right now” -ExileOnBroadStreet
“This was the greatest game of its time. I remember buying it when it said it needed a P60 but I was sure it would run on my DX4 100 that I’d recently built…it didn’t.”
“But when I was able to run it it was the best multiplayer experience I’ve ever had. Me and my mate spent weeks finishing it. Good old coaxial and IPX/SPX.” -blue_nowhere
“I was 8 when I started playing with my brother, and he said ‘go to hell’ and our mother gave him the meanest look.”
“‘No really I’m going to hell to defeat Diablo the lord of terror’” -Wyvern69
Classic Strategy, Still Going Strong
“Age of empires 2” -AdventurousExternal9
“The intro to the first game with the short clip of a guy running head first into a horse ass is still the most random shit of an intro to any game.” -Thehunterforce
“It’s got a robust community even in 2021. I will binge-watch matches on Youtube. It’s crazy how skilled the really good players are to be able to plan and execute so quickly.” -scrambled_cable
“I’ve never had much interest in the game, with maybe a total of a few hours played way back when it was new. I have watched almost all of Hidden Cup.”
“I think it’s mostly that I enjoy T-90’s enthusiasm and knowledge, but it’s also just a really good fair game for competition.” -onioning
“Very close to a perfect game imo” -aBitofRnRplease
“Definitive Edition fixes AI problems, which was one of the few issues in the original and HD Edition.” -pazza89
“Ranked multi is where it’s at. Incredibly well balanced game with how many race options?!” -Slateclean
StarCraft Lives On
“StarCraft” -Bartos565
“I often find myself thinking of cool features I’d love to see added to modern strategy games… only to remember that Brood War was already doing that 20+ years ago. Far and away one of the greatest games of all time.”
“If the pro players weren’t bored from 10,000s of hours played (and hadn’t moved on to MOBAs), I feel like it would still be one of the most-watched eSports.” -LeigusZ
“It still is one of the most watched esports and more illegal money moves through sc betting than any other esport.” -joedude
Reticulating Splines
“SimCity 2000. The music and sound effects still pop up in my head sometimes.” –Codfish_Joe
“‘YOU CAN’T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!’ Take it easy, Reggie, they’re just roads- oh I see…” -campex
“I loved building a city, and then exporting it to Streets of Sim City so I could drive around in said city.” -Jetshadow
“The first game I lost several days to my life to.”
“I accidentally played all through the night without getting sleep 3 times in a row. Forced myself not to “just one more minute” the game and just go to bed.” -golgol12
Wahoo! Wahaa!
“Super Mario 64.” -PrxnceZuko
“(throws penguin off the cliff)” -UnsolvedParadox
“I’ve put a lot of hours into that since I got it Xmas’98. Helluva lot of fun.” -Randyfox86
“Even when you’ve done absolutely everything there is to do in the game, it’s still a blast to just run and jump around in.”
“You can speedrun it, you can make your own challenges, you can swoop through the moat with the wing cap at maximum velocity. It’s just a crazy fun world.” -DeathbyChiasmus
Heroes
“Heroes of Might and Magic III” -joltsiboltsi
“Fell down a rabbit hole on HOMM on Friday, actually. It was so well done, used to play multiplayer with my friends and family. Brilliantly done, great story, great expansions, etc…”
“Reading up the wiki on the history, the changes with 3DO (before they went bankrupt), and so on was pretty wild.” -cavscout43
“I still play to this day.” -Jahzen6
“Same, I only play it every few years but every time I do I spend 8-10 hours straight playing. Been doing this for over 20 years.” -MrMooMooDandy
“Same. And for anyone looking to get back into it…”
“Don’t buy the HD edition on steam, buy the complete edition on GoG. And then if you want to go the distance. Go type in ‘heroes 3 HotA’ and download and install that.”
“It’s a player made expansion and balance patch. Also allows things like simultaneous turns in multi-player so you aren’t always waiting on your friends moves!”
“r/heroes3 is also a good reference!” –ApexIsGangster
It’s Truly Unreal
“Unreal Tournament is the best game nobody talks about anymore. It’s a goddamn crime that Epic just abandoned it.” -TheRealGrifter
“M-M-M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL” -redx1105
“I used to play UT every day for years. Just one of the best gaming experiences for me.”
“It is a shame that Epic abandoned it.” -Teleneki
“I was spending hours jumping between buildings (morpheus map) with my rocket launcher. Loved this game. (*Similarly loved Quake 3 at the time).”
“To refresh memories, a sample of someone’s gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IP909D0mlE“ -MACARLOS
I Serve The Flaming Fist!
“Baldur’s Gate.”
“Can’t count the number of times I’ve started, cheated, and stopped playing the first 4 hours of that game.”
“Edit: Just wanted to say, I actually recently(i.e.: about two years ago) bought the Enhanced Edition(and BG2EE, and Planescape, and NWN1EE and 2, and Icewind Dale….) and played through it and BG2, as well as the little bridge campaign they built (Siege at Dragonbridge?).”
“Had a fantastic time and will definitely be doing it without cheating one of these days. 
(I used big boy cheats to give my character like 200 9th level spell slots and just steamrolled from one side of the game to the other just to get the story)” -Alouitious
“My mother who never ever played videogames actually played through a few baldurs gates. It has to be on the list.” -BaronVonBadAsh
Hero Of Time
“Zelda OOT [Ocarina of Time]” -evilblizzardemployee
“It was that long ago? You mean I’ve been hating the Water Temple since last century?” -Kamikaze_Bacon
“Since last millennium too.” -Fission_Mailed_2
“Came here to say this. Ocarina is infinitely replayable.” -tlermalik
“Maybe I’m just a freak, but I’ve always enjoyed Majora’s Mask more than OOT. MM just feels like a more complete and vibrant world.”
“OOT is relatively unpopulated and lonely when I’ve replayed it recently.”
“Both are fantastic though.” -Piano_Fingerbanger
The graphics in older games might not be great, but some of the gameplay mechanics and stories are amazing.
They’re definitely worth giving a try if you didn’t play them when they first came out.