(What's this?) Release date: 1996 Original RRP: £29.99 In brief: Games luminary Sid Meier launches his second Civilization title having proved to Microprose that PC gamers would pay to play a loosely historical turn-based strategy game that doesn't necessarily involve death and destruction. And good god, it sells even more than the first – who'd have thunk it, eh? Box art: 2/5 Yeah… can you imagine this on any modern gaming title? I half expected a CD copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica inside this…

(What's this?) Release date: 1999 Original RRP: $??? In brief: Ultima IX is, to date, the final single-player game in Richard Garriot's groundbreaking RPG series. It featured a new 3D engine (quite a change from the isometric view of previous titles) and was massively hyped in the months leading to launch, but poorly received by game reviewers and Ultima fans. Ascension had been through four versions since 1990 and seen various team members leave in the middle of production, and the final release was buggy and had hefty hardware requirements for the time, demanding a powerful graphics card to drive its 3D engine. It was also criticised for largely ignoring the story of previous Ultima games, and for lacking the depth which had made the series so famous. The 'Dragon Edition' of Ultima IX was named for the Ultima Dragons fan club and is a huge box with a bundle of extras for true Ultima fanatics, and was only available in the US in very limited quantities. It's now quite rare, with mint-condition copies fetching a high price (though don't be fooled by Amazon Marketplace sellers listing them for $2,000, it's not that rare).

(What's this?) Release date: 1994 Original RRP: £29.99 In brief: In the days when the ‘Tycoon’ suffix didn't remind you of a generic sim-style gravy train that any developer would jump on to make a quick buck, System 2000 created Pizza Tycoon. Doom was king of the PC and Sim City was doing the rounds, so a PC title with 'Pizza' printed on the box was a curious item indeed. Box art: 2/5 Now we know where the White Label budget line got its inspiration from – delete the text and you can imagine discovering a nine-inch pepperoni-pie inside this box.

  There was a time, before the competition for retailers' shelf space became as fierce as it is today, when a new PC release wasn't just crammed into a standardised plastic case and filed in their hundreds onto a single shelf. It came in a big, chunky box, proudly displayed five or six across and maybe three deep in your local games store. Publishers back then seemed to be more aware of the event that a PC games purchase was and filled this box out with enough paraphernalia to keep the gamer occupied during the lengthy install times. You got something that was both more tangible and looked much prettier on your shelf.