Nineties Compilation

Hey all!

Eventhough we aren't active anymore on the blog we couldn't deny you this awesome video! We're sure that all the Dutch 90's kids will remember the following:

Thank You & Goodbye

As we have announced last week, we will no longer continue with the 90’s Trends blog, as well as the Facebook page and Twitter account. This is truly a sad announcement for us, because we would like to continue blogging about the 90’s. We have completed this part of the Business Information Technology (BIT) course that we are both following at Tilburg University, now it is time for us to focus on the next task we need to do in order to successfully complete the course. We had a great time blogging about the awesome nineties and it didn’t feel obligatory to us, we genuinely enjoyed researching all the 90’s topics we discussed and writing about it. We would take like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to this blog in any way. We want to thank our loyal visitors who have read this blog, our followers on this blog, our followers on Twitter and the people that liked our Facebook page. Also a special thanks to everyone that gave us inspiration on specific topics and commented on our posts. This is goodbye for us now, we hoped you have enjoyed every last bit of our 90’s Trends blog. Never stop reliving the nineties!

With Love,

Emma & Ester

Movies: List

This will be our last movie post and today we will give you the top 50 of the highest grossing movies of the 90’s

Rank	Film	Year	Worldwide Gross	Studio
1.	Titanic	1997	$1,843,201,268	Paramount
2.	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	1999	$924,317,558	Fox
3.	Jurassic Park	1993	$914,691,118	Universal
4.	Independence Day	1996	$817,400,891	Fox
5.	The Lion King	1994	$783,841,776	Walt Disney Pictures
6.	Forrest Gump	1994	$677,387,716	Paramount
7.	The Sixth Sense	1999	$672,806,292	Hollywood Pictures
8.	The Lost World: Jurassic Park	1997	$618,638,999	Universal
9.	Men in Black	1997	$589,390,539	Columbia
10.	Armageddon	1998	$553,709,788	Buena Vista
11.	Terminator 2: Judgment Day	1991	$519,398,546	TriStar
12.	Ghost	1990	$505,702,588	Paramount
13.	Aladdin	1992	$504,050,219	Buena Vista
14.	Twister	1996	$494,471,524	Warner Bros.
15.	Saving Private Ryan	1998	$481,840,909	DreamWorks
16.	Home Alone	1990	$476,684,675	Fox
17.	Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me	1999	$205,040,086	New Line
18.	Mrs. Doubtfire	1993	$441,286,195	Fox
19.	Basic Instinct	1992	$352,927,224	TriStar Pictures
20.	Toy Story	1995	$191,796,233	Buena Vista
21.	Dances with Wolves	1990	$184,208,848	Orion
22.	Batman Forever	1995	$184,031,112	Warner Bros.
23.	The Fugitive	1993	$183,875,760	Warner Bros.
24.	Liar Liar	1997	$181,410,615	Universal
25.	Mission: Impossible	1996	$180,981,856	Paramount
26.	Pretty Woman	1990	$178,406,268	Buena Vista
27.	There's Something About Mary	1998	$176,484,651	Fox
28.	Home Alone 2: Lost in New York	1992	$173,585,516	Fox
29.	Air Force One	1997	$172,956,409	Sony
30.	Apollo 13	1995	$172,071,312	Universal
31.	The Matrix	1999	$171,479,930	Warner Bros.
32.	Tarzan	1999	$171,091,819	Buena Vista
33.	Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves	1991	$165,493,908	Warner Bros.
34.	Big Daddy	1999	$163,479,795	Sony
35.	Batman Returns	1992	$162,831,698	Warner Bros.
36.	A Bug's Life	1998	$162,798,565	Buena Vista
37.	The Waterboy	1998	$161,491,646	Buena Vista
38.	The Firm	1993	$158,348,367	Paramount
39.	The Mummy	1999	$155,385,488	Universal
40.	Jerry Maguire	1996	$153,952,592	Sony
41.	Runaway Bride	1999	$152,257,509	Paramount
42.	As Good as It Gets	1997	$148,478,011	Sony
43.	True Lies	1994	$146,282,411	Fox
44.	Beauty and the Beast	1991	$145,863,363	Buena Vista
45.	The Santa Clause	1994	$144,833,357	Buena Vista
46.	Lethal Weapon 3	1992	$144,731,527	Warner Bros.
47.	Dr. Dolittle	1998	$144,156,605	Fox
48.	Pocahontas	1995	$141,579,773	Buena Vista
49.	A Few Good Men	1992	$141,340,178	Columbia
50.	Rush Hour	1998	$141,186,864	New Line

Movies: Late 90's

Today we will discuss the movies from 1997 up to 1999.

The top grossing movies of 1997 is Titanic ($1,843,201,268), making it the highest grossing film in history. On Sunday, February 22, 1998, Titanic reached a $400 million domestic gross in a record time of 66 days. On Thursday, March 26, 1998 after 98 days in release, Titanic reached $500 million domestically, becoming the first film in history to cross the half-billion-dollar domestic milestone. On Thursday, August 27, 1998 Titanic reached $600 million domestically becoming the most successful box office film in history (until Avatar broke this record in 2010).

Some movie events were:

·         The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.

·         Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

·         The Lost World: Jurassic Park grosses a record $90,161,880 on Memorial Weekend.

·         As of November 7, 2008, forty-one films released in 1997 have grossed more than $100 million, reaching blockbuster status

The top grossing film of 1998 was Armageddon ($553,709,788). Some other successful movies that were released in that year are: Saving Private Ryan, Godzilla, There’s Something About Mary and A Bug’s Life. There weren’t any notable events in this year.

The highest grossing movie of 1999 was Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace ($924,317,558).

Some events this year were:

·         April 17 - Star Wars fans begin lining up at cinemas in Westwood and Hollywood to buy tickets for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

·         November 24 - Toy Story 2, a sequel to the 1995 film Toy Story, is released in theaters across the United States, and becomes an even bigger hit than the original. The film is released in the United Kingdom in February 2000.

The year 1999 in film has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep Canvas-pioneering Tarzan, Best Picture-winner American Beauty, critically acclaimed animated works The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2 and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's breakout film Being John Malkovich, M. Night Shyamalan's breakout hit The Sixth Sense, the controversial Fight Club, Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia and the first installment of George Lucas's Star Wars prequel trilogy were released this year.

This was all for the movies that were released during the late 90’s, next time we will provide a top 50 of highest grossing 90’s movies.

Movies: Mid 90's

Today we will discuss the movies from 1994 to 1996 and other related aspects.

The top grosser worldwide in 1994 was The Lion King ($768,625,889), which to date stands as the highest-grossing traditionally-animated film of all time. Domestically in North America, it was slightly overtaken by Forrest Gump, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and a second consecutive Academy Award for Best Actor for Tom Hanks.

There were also several popular action films, including Speed and True Lies. In the comedy realm, there was The Mask and Four Weddings and a Funeral, the latter of which shocked Forrest Gump to win the BAFTA award for Best Film. 1994 also featured the watershed Quentin Tarantino film and Palme d'Or winner, Pulp Fiction. Although a box office disappointment when originally released, 1994's The Shawshank Redemption, based on a Stephen King short story, would eventually become regarded as one of the films considered the greatest ever. Additionally, Hoop Dreams, a documentary that follows the story of two African-American high school students in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players, received high critical and popular acclaim and is generally considered one of the best documentary films ever made. In Blackburn, England, the discovery of approximately 800 well-preserved nitrate negatives shot by the British film pioneers Mitchell and Kenyon, active from 1897 to 1913 but previously known for only a handful of surviving titles, became a major contribution to early cinema.

 

The top grossing film of 1995 was Die Hard with a Vengeance ($366,101,666), which was the third movie in the popular Die Hard film series starring Bruce Willis.

Some notable film events were:

• March 13 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.
•  November 17 - After a six-year hiatus, the James Bond film series resumes with the successful GoldenEye.
• November 22 - Toy Story is released debuting at the #1 and remaining on the film charts for 18 weeks, marking the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery.

The highest grossing movie of 1996 was Independence Day ($817,400,891), starring Will Smith. Some other major releases in this year were: Major releases this year included Swingers, Fargo, Trainspotting, The Rock, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna. A funny fact is that in 1996 James Cameron officially begins writing the future blockbuster and highest grossing film of all time; Avatar.

Next time we will discuss the movies of the late 90’s!

Movies: Early 90’s

We have a sad announcement; this will unfortunately be our last week of blogging.  We have had a great time blogging about all sorts of topics from the nineties and we will end it by blogging about movies from the nineties. Today we will discuss well-known movies from 1990 until 1993.

The biggest grossing film worldwide of 1990 was Ghost ($505,702,588) and it featured Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. Some significant movie events in 1990 were:

·         CGI technique is expanded with motion capture for CGI characters, used in Total Recall (1990).

·         The first digitally-manipulated matte painting is used, in Die Hard 2.

·         The use of real-time computer graphics or "digital puppetry" to create a character in a motion picture is performed, in RoboCop 2.

·         November 16 - Disney's first ever animated sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, is released.

·         Universal Pictures celebrated its 75th anniversary with a new logo.

The biggest grossing movie of 1991was Terminator 2: Judgment Day ($519,843,345) that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and was directed by James Cameron. Two significant movie events in 1991 were:

·         Terminator 2: Judgment Day, became one of the landmarks for science fiction action films with its groundbreaking visual effects from Industrial Light & Magic.

·         November 22 - Walt Disney Pictures releases Beauty and the Beast which is the first animated film in history to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.

The top grossing movie in 1992 was Disney’s Aladdin ($504,050,219), which had a budget of $28 million. Number 4 in the top (Basic Instinct) was directed by the Dutch Paul Verhoeven, and included the (in)famous interrogation scene.  

The top grossing film of 1993 was Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park ($914,691,118). It was the highest grossing film ever made (at the time) and brought in way more money than its runner up Mrs. Doubtfire ($441,286,195). Some significant movie events of 1993 were:

·         The film Jurassic Park, a dinosaur epic with massive special effects, breaks box-office records by becoming the highest-grossing film ever made (at the time).

·         Family romance film Sleepless in Seattle revives the genre of the Courtship of Eddie's Father, with an extensive soundtrack of oldies music.

·         March 31 - Actor Brandon Lee is accidentally killed during the filming of The Crow.

·         Actress Kim Basinger files for bankruptcy after a California judge orders her to pay $7.4 million for refusing to honor a verbal contract to star in the film Boxing Helena. As a result, Basinger loses the town that she purchased in 1989, Braselton, Georgia, to her partner in the deal, the pension fund of Chicago-based Ameritech.

·         May 28 - Produced by Hollywood Pictures, Super Mario Bros. opens, marking the first video game film released, starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi.

Next time we will discuss movies from the mid-nineties!

Computer Games: Construction

This will already be our last post about nineties computer games, and this time we will talk about some games that involve some sort of construction in it and that were released in the 90’s.

Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games and the gameplay revolves around two main game modes; random map and campaign. The games were developed by Ensemble Studios and were published by Microsoft Studios. The first Age of Empires came out in 1997 and since then seven titles and three spin-offs have been released. The other Age of Empire games that came out in the 90’s are The Rise of Rome (1998) and Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999). The games in the series focus on historical events throughout time. Age of Empires (original game) covers the events between the Stone Age and the Classical Period in Europe and Asia. Its expansion, The Rise of Rome, follows the formation and rise of the Roman Empire. Age of Empires II follows Europe and Asia through the Middle Ages. The Age of Empires series has been a commercial success, selling over 20 million copies. The popularity and quality of the games has earned Ensemble Studios a strong reputation in real-time strategy gaming. Critics have credited part of the success of the series to its historical theme and fair play; the artificial intelligence players fight with less "cheating" than in many of the series' competitors.

Another well-known series of “construction” games is the Sim-series. These games were developed by Maxis and published by Maxis and Electronic Arts. The first Sim game was SimCity, released in 1989, this game was followed by a numerous amount of other games released in the 90’s and later decades (see the timeline), including the immense popular The Sims video games.  

The Sim games are city-building simulation games, in which the player has to build a city (you don’t say?) without any specific goals to achieve. The player also had to face disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes and attacks by monsters. SimCity still proves to be popular and therefore a new SimCity is expected to be released in 2013.

This marks the ending of our Computers Games week, but next week we will be back with movies from the nineties!

Computer Games: Action

Go to our >>>> Facebook Page <<<<< and like us there! The winner will receive a message from us :).

Today we wil discuss several computer games from the nineties that could be classified as action games. 

Need for speed (NFS) is a series of racing games, published by Electronic Arts (EA). The first NFS game was released in 1994 and was available for PC and PS1. All the NFS games up until 2002 were only available for PC and Playstation. The other NFS games that were released in the 90's are: Need for Speed II (1997), Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998) and Need for Speed: High Stakes (1999). NFS focuses on racing various races in different types of racing cars. 

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) is a multi-award-winning video game series that was developed and published by Rockstar. The game focuses on an open world, where the player can choose missions to progress an overall story, as well as engaging in side-activities, such as driving, role-playing, stealth and racing. The games gained some controversy for its adult nature and violent themes. The first GTA game was released in 1997, and GTA 2 in 1999. If you still want to play GTA 2, here are some cheats which you can use. You first have to activate the cheats modus by naming yourself GOURANGA:

GODOFGTA - All weapons with 99 ammo

FLAMEON - Infinite flamethrower

VOLTFEST - Infinite electrogun 

EATSOUP - Carshop is free 

RSJABBER - Invulnerability

ARESTAR - Keep you're weapons after being arrested 

IAMDAVEJ - $9,999,999

Starcraft is a military science action real-time strategy video game, developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The first game was released on 31 March, 1998 for Microsoft Windows. In 2009 Starcraft sold more than 11 million copies worldwide, making it 1 of the best-selling games for the PC. The 3 distinct races in Starcraft are widely credited with revolutionizing the real-time strategy genre.

Warcraft is a franchise of video games, novels and other media, created by Blizzard Entertainment. The series consists of 4 core games; Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and World of Warcraft (WoW). The first three games are real-time strategy games and WoW is a MMORPG. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was released in 1994 and Warcraft II in 1995. Here are some cheats for Warcraft II:

On screen - Shows you the whole map.

Make it so - Speeds up building and unit production.

It is a good day to die - Makes your units ultra-powerful.

Unite the clans - Win the scenario instantly.

Glittering prizes - Increases your resources.

Hatchet - Trees can be cut down with two chops.

Deck me out - Gives you all the weapon/armor upgrades.

Every little thing she does - Gives you all spell upgrades.

There can be only one - Takes you to the campaign victory sequence

Quake is a series of first-person shooter video games, produced by id Software. Quake (1996) involves a marine traveling through alternate dimensions to prevent an invasion of inter-dimensional monsters. Quake II has nothing to do with the first Quake, and was originally intended to be a separate franchise. Quake II (1997) involves an assault on an alien planet, Stroggos, in retaliation for Strogg attacks an Earth. The other Quake games were released after the 90's.

Quake 2

Resident Evil 3

Resident Evil is a survival horror video game  by Capcom. The first installment in the Resident Evil series was released in 1996, and was one of the first games to be dubbed a "survival horror". Accordingly, Game Informer refers to the original Resident Evil as "one of the most important games of all time". The Director's Cut of Resident Evil was released in 1997, Resident Evil 2 in 1998 and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis in 1999 (all later games were released after the 90's).

We will add a little section about the video game Commander Keen, due to a request ;) Commander Keen is a series of video games developed by id Software. It focuses on the adventures of Billy Blaze, and 8-year old boy who travels through space and assumes the identity "Commander Keen". There were several episodes released in the early 90's, 1-3 in 1990, and 4-6 in 1991. The episode Keen Dreams was also released in 1991

This was all on action video games, next time we will discuss construction games!

Facebook Giveaway!

Go to our >>>> Facebook Page <<<<< and like us there! The winner will receive a message from us :).

Computer Games: Adventure and educational

This week the 90's theme is computer games and we will start of by discussing the genres adventure and educational games. Some games might not be categorized perfectly but we needed to make some sort of equal devide (this goes for all the games we will discuss this week). The adventure games we will go over are Rayman, Final Fantasy and Prince of Persia.

Rayman The Great Escape

The Rayman series are developed by Ubisoft and was released for PC on April 30, 1996. Next to a PC game, this platform video game was also released for the Playstation, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn and several Gameboys. The first Rayman is a side-scrolling platform game where Rayman must travel through 5 worlds to free the caged Electoons and fight Mr. Dark. The sequel, Rayman 2: The Great Escape, came out in 1999. Several more Rayman games were released, but all after the nineties, including the Raving Rabbits series.

Final Fantasy is a huge Japanese franchise that includes the popular role-playing games for the PC (and lots of other platforms). The Finanal Fantasy games released in the 90's are: Final Fantasy III to Final Fantasy XIII (we're currently up to FF XIV).

Final Fantasay 1

Prince of Persia 2

Prince of Persia is a platform game developed by Broderbund and was released in Europe in 1990. There is a Prince of Persia trilogy, that consists of Prince of Persia (original game), Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame and Prince of Persia 3D. The second game was released in 1993 and the third one is 1999. PoP remained popular and there were several other games released after the 90's.

The educational games we will discuss are RedCat, Junior Detectives and Freddi Fish.

 RedCat was the main character in a series of Dutch educational software for elementary schools. The first RedCat was released in 1994 and had an immediate sequel in the same year. The RedCat games released after that all were related to a subject taught in school, such as math, spelling, topography and biology.

Junior Detectives is a series of educational games for elementary schools. For each grade was a different game where you had to solve mysteries, applying knowledge you learned in school. Next to Junior Detectives there was also the Robbie Konijn series, that was designed for children in the lowest grades.

Freddi Fish is a series of educational games for children, developed by Humongous Entertainment. The first Freddi Fish game was released in 1994 and 2 more were released the 90's (the final one in 2001). Freddi is a joyful fish that helps you solve underwater mysteries, together with his colorful friends.

We hope you've enjoyed this post about adventure and educational games. Next time we will go over several 90's action games!