Game of the Year

[The_J]

Uh, hard decision.
Civ2 was one of my first games, and my first TBS.
I think MoO2 was my second.
Quake as first shooter (I think) has also a special place in my heart, I've also played Diablo a ton, Red Alert was my first RTS, and Duke Nukem 3D just funny.
The tie is sure between the first 2.
But what reasoning to apply, the one from civvver or from Loppan? Maybe both?
mmhh...I think in that case MoO2 is my winner.
Both were awesome games at that time, but MoO2 was way longer playable for me, I think I played it the last time in 2011 (only a few games, then you realize how dull it is after some time).

 

[Akka]

Doh, I'm a bit late here...

So let's make it my nominations for 1995 :

- Warcraft II, of course, that I feel no need to describe.
- Worms, the first, one and only, incredibly addictive, simple and fun.
- Chrono Trigger, one of the very best Squaresoft games.
- Command & Conquer, a worthy successor to Dune II and (at the time) a rather innovative RTS game.
- Frontier : First Encounter : sequel and relifting of Frontier, still as huge and gripping, and with the addition of quite interesting newpapers to read during your trips and a bunch of static missions to feel better part of a real world.
- Seiken Densetsu 3, another great Squaresoft game.

My choice is going to be tricky, though. I'm especially torn between the first three (Warcrat II, Worms and Chronotrigger). Really can't make a decision. Give my vote to the one of them which has the less votes

 

[Akka]

Okay, now, 1996...
Grab your gear and tighten your belt, this is one of the biggest year in video gaming, choke-full of game which created their own franchises or even started new genres.

On a more personnal note, it's also the years that we managed to play in with my friends (and due to a game of this year I discovered Internet the next one).
It may seems hard to believe today, considering 1996 is not THAT far in the past, but at the time the entire idea of networking was mostly unknown, and Internet was only spoken of in extremely high-tech enterprises or extremely geeky rings - it wasn't even that people thought it was a strange thing, it's even that most people didn't even knew what that was.

So, let's see the nominations :

Civilization II of course. Doh.
Diablo, a game which revolutionned the action scene. BTW, these two games are the only reason I finally switched from DOS to Windows at the time. Just saying.
Duke Nukem 3D, a game so viscerally fun and good that it took 15 years of vaporware to finally kills its main character.
Daggerfall, the titanic (due to automatic generation of course) first "known" Elder Scroll game. Huge sprawling dungeons that you spent whole evening just getting out
Quake, the first real, fully-3D FPS game, and ancestor of all the FPS of today.
Master of Orion II, the better sequel of the space-faring 4X game.
Resident Evil, progenitor of the legendary franchise.
Tomb Raider, same as above.
Wing Commander IV, last game where we played the hero from the three previous games.
And a little special nomination for a small but incredibly fun on-the-side game that managed to enlight several evening of my life : Death Rally. Not playing the same category than the others, but I just had so much fun with it, I wanted people to remember it ^^

As for my nomination, the competition is fierce. We have the last great FPS of the time (Duke Nukem) and the first great of the new era (Quake). We have the most polished Civ, and the revolutionnary open-world RPG.

But above all we have the game which spawned not a franchise, but an entire genre, and which was probably one of the very, very few games that managed to glue me several monthes strait on my computer (a feat that only Civilization ever managed).
So my vote goes to Diablo.

 

[Rub'Rum]

This is getting impossible. My choices are between Civilization II, Tomb Raider, Diablo, Heroes of Might and Magic II. This is the time I really got into PC gaming too. A lot of sweet memories. By default of amount of hours played...

Vote=Diablo

 

[civvver]

Uh, hard decision.
Civ2 was one of my first games, and my first TBS.
I think MoO2 was my second.
Quake as first shooter (I think) has also a special place in my heart, I've also played Diablo a ton, Red Alert was my first RTS, and Duke Nukem 3D just funny.
The tie is sure between the first 2.
But what reasoning to apply, the one from civvver or from Loppan? Maybe both?
mmhh...I think in that case MoO2 is my winner.
Both were awesome games at that time, but MoO2 was way longer playable for me, I think I played it the last time in 2011 (only a few games, then you realize how dull it is after some time).

I think our reasoning is actually the same, we're both basing our opinion purely on overall individual experience. All I'm saying is if you replay some of the old games some of the older games that individual experience might change. And it's not even that significant of change, it's just enough that I find lords of the realm a superior game to civ 2.

1996 was a really good year for games, especially pc games. I don't think we'll have any other year this difficult, maybe 1998.

Thought of another great one, Conquest of the New World. You can look it up on gog. Has anyone else played it? It's sort of like civ meets heroes of might and magic.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Thought of another great one, Conquest of the New World. You can look it up on gog. Has anyone else played it? It's sort of like civ meets heroes of might and magic.

Yeah, saw it in a magazine back in the days and eventually got it a couple of years after the fact. It's a decent game. I got a gog.com copy.

 

[Mitchum]

Diablo for me just to make things tighter.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Vote: Civ2. Like earlier years, there were a lot of the games listed I didn't play.

 

[The_J]

I've been looking a bit through the overviews in Wikipedia, and noticed the "noticable", means that there's quite some stuff missing :/.

In 1996, also Settlers II was released.

 

[Kyriakos]

I want to vote for civ2 as well, given it was the game i actually bought more times than any other (i think i bought it 5 seperate times, and yeah, this was because it was so addictive for me that each previous time i ended up destroying the cd so as to not have the urge to play more... ).

But i am still sad that Civ1 won this poll in its own year of release, which in my view should never had happened given its not so prominent existence in that year, and many other issues with Civ1 next to the other games of that year. :/

I guess i'll still vote for Civ2 though, or abstain.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

But i am still sad that Civ1 won this poll in its own year of release, which in my view should never had happened given its not so prominent existence in that year, and many other issues with Civ1 next to the other games of that year. :/

I guess i'll still vote for Civ2 though, or abstain.

"In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

 

[Kyriakos]

^I am judging civ1 according to 'its ways', pretty much like god, actually ^squared.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

..but are you judging civ2 harshly because of civ1?

 

[Kyriakos]

?

Spoiler :

i already said that CivII was by far the most addictive game for me

 

[Loppan Torkel]

It almost looked like you considered abstaining from voting on civ2 due to your grievance over civ1.

Since I'm sure you'll see this - there's a new demo on steam you might enjoy - The Stanley Parable.

 

[Kyriakos]

I went to their site and the first comment there was as vague as their own brief description of the game.

"Astoundingly labyrinthine onion-like layers of narrative tangents the player can embark on in what feels like the unholy interactive offspring of Inception, Being John Malkovich and Portal."

Eurogamer

Also:

Why change the subject?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

It just felt like we might be heading in a passive-aggressive direction with

Some games are better played before you know too much of them. I enjoyed the narration in this one. There's a free demo. It won't revolutionize anyone's life but it's a game that keeps you thinking.

It's getting off-topic. Back to goty of 1996.

 

[Kyriakos]

Some more choices for 1996, adventure games this time:

Harvester...

I haven't played Harvester, but read a bit on its plot which seems rather interesting. Ultra-gory, obviously, so i would be less likely to enjoy most of the game. But i am nominating it anyway

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (aka Broken Sword 1)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Sword:_The_Shadow_of_the_Templars

Broken Sword is probably my favorite adventure game of all time... I am nominating it and voting for it as well

Vote: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

 

[Sonereal]

Harvester was rather creepy. The game has aged well, in the sense that its dated visuals make it even creepier.

 

[sherbz]

Vote - Mario Kart 64. One of the best multiplayer games of all time. It easily deserves the title of "legendary", and for that reason it deserves my vote.

I couldnt vote for Civ 2. It was a very good game, but it wasnt great IMO. The diplomacy was awful and used to annoy the hell out of me. It almost ruined the game. The diplomacy in MOO2 was much better and made a great deal more sense. It was actually possible to have alliances that lasted through the game. Combat was also far superior in MOO2, as were the graphics. Civ 2 might have won the strategy battle, but not by much. I just think MOO2 is a better game all round.

The mini battle between quake and Duke Nukem is won by Duke Nukem IMO. Quake had better graphics, but Duke was more fun.