These days, game systems come with all kinds of I/O ports—USB, HDMI, Ethernet, Optical Audio and more. These portals are used to do everything from log online to connect digital cameras.

The Dark Knight is without a doubt one of the most beloved comic book characters and pop culture icons of all time. Over decades, Batman’s brooding nature, ace detective skills and colorful gallery of villains have become second nature to most of us.

As we’ve mentioned in Part 1 of this series, 1996 was a truly landmark year for video games. The industry saw a huge number of classic entries – from violent first-person shooters, to fun platformers and grim strategy games.

A massive number of classics were released in 1996 across a wide variety of platforms, and in this article, we are going to talk about some of our favorites from 1996.

1995 was a landmark year for video games. The Playstation was only a few months old, and Sony was looking to make a comeback after Nintendo and the SNES had been trouncing their products.

Probably no console manufacturer lost the initiative worse than Sega did after it slayed the dragon known as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 1992, on the heels of a gambit that saw Sega bundle the Genesis system with Sonic the Hedgehog.

It can happen to even the most scrupulous retro-game collector. You’ve got a pristine Super Nintendo displayed alongside other throwback consoles, and yet somehow it turns yellow over time. 

There are a few video-game consoles out there, such as the Sega Saturn and the NEC TurboGrafx-16 that have been lost to the slow march of time. But avid retro gamers enjoy collecting these machines because they offer throw-back thrills and underrated gameplay.

In the summer of 1991, at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show, video-game behemoth Nintendo revealed the follow-up to their much-adored NES console. The Super Nintendo would improve on the original in every way, featuring 16-bit graphics and capacity for some 32,768 colors.

Over the last 40 years dozens upon dozens of home video game consoles have been released across the globe. Some, like the NES, retailed for affordable prices ($89.99), while others, like the TurboGrafx-16, were prohibitively expensive ($399.99). 

If the ‘80s was the decade that thought it was the future, then the ‘90s was the decade that actually saw some of those technological promises come true. Case in point: handheld electronics—video games, to be precise.

For those who think retro gaming (or “old school” gaming) is nothing but an obscure niche, think again. It’s a big business, one that brings in about $200 million annually.

With Nintendo’s popularity at an all-time low, Xbox and PlayStation have become the Coke and Pepsi of home game consoles. But there was a time when there were many systems on the market from which to choose. 

In another article I discussed the relative merits of the two main fifth-gen consoles—the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation (One)—during their first holiday seasons after launch.