The early 1990’s were the Golden Age of Sierra Adventure Games, which featured a bunch of addictive, kid-friendly adventure titles like So You Want to be a Hero? and Space Quest III. These games featured cheesy protaganists and plenty of self-deprecating humor. So when Manhunter: New York came along, the sudden turn towards a dark tone and bleak atmosphere was shocking.
Manhunter: New York was set in the unimaginable post-apocalyptic future of the year 2004. An alien race called The Orbs had occupied New York City two years before and turned it into an impenetrable fortress. The Orb’s domination of the city was total — all inter-human contact was strictly forbidden. To make matters worse, your nameless protaganist was one of the stooges for the alien oppressors. As the eponymous Manhunter, it was your job to track down and arrest human criminals on behalf of the Orbs.
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There are certain things an RPG needs to do in order to qualify as “epic.” These things include: engrossing storyline, engaging game dynamics, open-world gameplay structure, lots of sidequests, replayability, and hidden goodies to reward the player who spent more time adventuring than was probably advisable. The classic PC RPG 
Some will insist there are more challenging games, longer games, more varied games, and less linear games than Streets of Rage 2- and they would be right on all accounts. Streets of Rage 2 was not revolutionary, but rather a well tuned classic from day 1, a work of casual arcade brilliance, meant to be played out in one sitting. While other designers were focusing on making games more accessible to players by adding save functions and level select screens, the Streets of Rage 2 team instead focused on making an accessible and re-playable arcade game without betraying the ethos of the genre. 
Dirt Bike 3D brought three great things to the table: Uber-simplicity, a dynamic mouse control that was both rare and innovative (and controversial) for its kind, and a strong track editor.
Despite our penchant for 3D games, team Muse has fond memories of classic gaming, and most importantly, well balanced gameplay. On that note, I’m kicking off the Games We Loved section with an arcade style masterpiece that lived in relative obscurity, yet still managed its way into the youth and subconscious memory of a few of us at Muse - Asterax.