It was the '90s, sorry zoomies.
You don't know because you don't know and cannot ever know -- so cope, and just try your hardest to know that it was the '90s.
What's the point explaining it to you? It would just be junk data. You won't "know" because you haven't experienced it. It would just be someone telling you a historical fact. It's just intellectual data, not experiential truth.
So, you have to just cope, and trust the words of people who do know, because they were there.
'00s is second place. Games began to suck in 2009.