You just want to wrap yourself up in it and drift away.

Romero got his start at id Software, where he played a major role in the development of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and other games that basically invented the first-person-shooter genre. So when Romero left id, co-founded a company called Ion Storm, and announced a time-traveling epic that would take the player and an intelligent sidekick through a near-future San Francisco, 25th-century Japan, Ancient Greece, and Dark Age Norway, every nerd on the planet started hyperventilating into their lunch bag. Oh, but don't let us over-hype it ... let Time magazine do that:

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"Everything that game designer John Romero touches turns to gore. And to gold," they said. "Romero ... wore the mantle of pop-culture godhood with aplomb," they gasped. The whole idea of sidekicks in a video game was a "bold departure" that would "help turn mere games into immersive dramas," Time screeched, before being overwhelmed with zealous lust and fainting dead away.

Eidos Interactive

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Pictured: Immersive drama.

We don't blame them -- the description of Daikatana sounds awesome even today. And that's because, even today, it's ambitious. In 1997, it was a unicorn fart up a rainbow. It's no coincidence that Daikatana was developed between '97 and 2000, the exact span of the dot-com bubble. Technology was getting big, gaming was getting even bigger, and everyone thought the money would flow forever. Time called John Romero a god because the industry had reached a place where it needed one. And who do you blame when shit goes sideways?