a micron of better flapping does not replace moon patrol
im thinking about the sound effects again though, ahh those fuckin noisy flaps
i was looking at the games from 1987 wikipedia and thought this was called âfailsonâ for a second, bad case of internet poisoning
4 Likes
yeah, the sound design gets me right in that groove where I like to make obnoxious noises for the pleasure of it, a perfect companion to the trollish nature of its multiplayer.
Maybe the endless mode needs a different wing flap sound
FUCK zookeeper came out in 1982 as well!! honorable noise mention
zookeepers sound stimulates me in a really intense way
boy doom/linkâs awakening/rondo is a lot huh
I want to play boy doom
6 Likes
oh god durandal and total distortion came out the same year help
and romancing saga 2
i think it has to be doom personally but yeah thatâs a fuckinâ year
1 Like
2000
GOTY candidates
SSX The best early game on PS2 and still a great game. One of the best snow boarding games ever. Excellent tracks. Really crisp and vibrant graphics. Excellent balance between actually boarding and also doing some tricks. The feel for the controls was so smooth and excellent. The pre-loading feature to get extra air off jumps also felt right. It added some strategy and sacrifice, as it didnât allow you to turn while you were crouched for the jump. Somehow the personalities of the boarders felt more important to the game, than later installments. I spent a lot of time playing this with my best friend who owned the Dreamcast.
Metal Gear Solid for Gameboy Color (actually a completely original game. Known in Japan as Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel).
Probably the best Gameboy Color specific game ever made. Gotta be in top 5 best gameboy games. Top 3 best MGS games. Might be GOTY. It somehow manages to squeeze nearly all of the gameplay, into GBC graphics. Plus it has a few extra things which werenât in MGS on PSone. Still has hundreds of VR missions. Has a 2 player Vs. mode via gamelink. Even though Snake is not made from very many pixels, his animation is curiously smooth for a GBC game. The progression of the game is great and makes for some great moments. Doesnât have a really memorable rogueâs gallery. But, there is also less emphasis on story here. Giving a leaner feel to the game. Which works in its favor, as a portable.
Chrono Cross Whatâs left to say about JRPGs? This is one of the best ones. And it manages to be very different from its predecessor. Which was uncommon with JRPGs at that point. And it also managed to feel unique enough, from the general crowd of JRPGs. Now, take what I said about Suikoden II, add in Squaresoftâs good tech and presentation, and great artists, and youâve got a GoTY candidate.
+++
other noteables
Ghost Recon Long before Advanced Warfighter on Xbox 360 took the series into a much more mainstream approach: Ghost Recon was a weirdly excellent hybrid action sim of FPS but with a squad whom you could give real time commands kind of like an RTS. Combine that with the unflinching enemy style of Rainbow Six games: and you had a white knuckle experience of inches and slow, but very tense pacing.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto Iâve actually only played the much less visually impressive PS2 port which came later and still had a blast with this game. Its got a strange sense of humor. is a curious mashup of gameplay styles which manages to stay fun throughout. Controls well. And was one of the better executions by this point, of big sprawling terrain.
Star Wars Episode I: Racer A surprisingly effective game of podracing. Its was quite fleshed out with upgrades and tracks and the whole deal. If youâre a fan of Wipeout or F-Zero or that one speeder bike level from Shadows of The Empire ---- youâll probably like this. Pretty unique and good.
Nox if you like Diablo games and are a general fan of the game style, You might like Nox.
MDK2 There werenât many 3rd person shooters at the time. This game did it really well and is also really quirky and weird.
Mega Man Legends 2 Better controls. Better graphics. More sophisticated plotting and characters. Little to fault, here. Great game.
Diablo 2 its a hell of a game. My relationship with Diablo 2 is interesting because it kinda became a game Iâm not really interested in. It unfortunately trades in some of the slightly slower and more personal speed of the first game. And while it sort of perfected its idea of gear, I liked it better when gear wasnât THE GAME. But, it greatly expands the moves and skill systems. And doubles the grit and detail and depth of the visuals. Even for the time, it would run fine on an older computer and you didnât sacrifice a whole lot visually, to do so. And even though it is faster, it didnât lose sight of things. Its very easy to setup for co-op and is more fun in co-op. I kinda go back and forth on which I like better, Diablo or Diablo II. Iâm also partial to the PSX version of Diablo so, Iâm a blasphemerâŠ
Vagrant Story is a game I really want to like more. But I never connected well with the combat system. Annnnd Iâve never been too keen on crafting, either. I was using a strategy guide for the crafting and still felt null about it. Shame too, because its a slower pace dungeon crawler. Which I like. Amazing graphics, presentation, animation. And good story.
2 Likes
1990: Parodius da! - I say this as somebody that dislikes the sequelsâthe first parodius is really good. The music is all haughty Romantic music set to a crashing/pounding dance beat, which is such a nice vibe for shooting stuff in a cool gay fantasy world that is also in space. Also, itâs so difficult that it might as well be endless.
1991: Final fantasy iv
1992: Shining force
1993: Castlevania rondo of blood
1994: Earthbound
1995: Elevator action returns
1996: Panzer dragoon zwei
1997: Vampire savior
1998: Virtual on OT
1999: Street fighter iii 3rd strike
6 Likes
I finally looked up what ârondoâ means
I added Jagged Alliance 2 into 1999. Forgot to put it in there.
Oh hey look it is the 90s. These were a weird time for me, because I had an NES and a decent PC, but basically skipped a lot of the 16 bit years until way later because my parents were not about buying me a 16 bit system and I was not old enough to work. And then I had a friend who was super into Saturn stuff, so that altered it as well.
| Year | Game |
|---|---|
| 1990 | SimCity |
| 1991 | Civilization |
| 1992 | Wolfenstein 3D |
| 1993 | Doom |
| 1994 | TIE Fighter |
| 1995 | Panzer Dragoon |
| 1996 | Guardian Heroes |
| 1997 | Gran Turismo |
| 1998 | Radiant Silvergun |
| 1999 | Shenmue |
Explanation
1990 SimCity
Especially given the stuff above, seems like a pretty obvious choice, but I got this for my birthday at some point and played the hell out of it. Sure, Will Wrightâs politics are a bit sus at this point, but whatever. To a 10 year old, this was amazing.
1991 Civilization
So I got into this a lot, but only after my mom. Civilization to this day is still her jam. I think she has like 15,000 hours or some ridiculous number in Civ V at this point. But this is the game that started it and made me weirdly hate Gandhi before I even knew who he was, so that counts, right?
1992 Wolfenstein 3D
Having a PC in the early 90s meant living through the shareware boom and boy howdy was Wolf3D a part of that for me. I played through the demo so many times. I eventually somehow got a less-than-legit copy of the full thing. It blew my mind.
1993 Doom
Similar to Wolf, but more 3D, sci fi, metal as fuck, etc. Thereâs no way this game canât end up here.
1994 TIE Fighter
My PC gaming had, to this point, been on my dadâs computer, but a friend bought me a copy of TIE Fighter, and it wouldnât run on that PC, so my parents made one of their famous well-meaning-but-ill-advised finanical decisions and got a new credit card to buy me a computer for my birthday. I feel a weird degree of guilt to this day about this, but it was amazing. TIE Fighter was amazing.
1995 Panzer Dragoon
Sure this could be Chrono Trigger or Earthbound, but no, even though I didnât own a Saturn till way later, this game is something amazing to me. It felt like its own weird world and man, those polygons.
1996 Guardian Heroes
Being a kid who never had a Genesis, Guardian Heroes was how I found out about Treasure from a friend with a Saturn who really wanted someone to play this with. Itâs fucking beautiful and Ginjrou/Randy was our team of choice. It has a level called Insane Dance Party.
1997 Gran Turismo
Gran Turismo was my depression game for a lot of my life.
1998 Radiant Silvergun
I didnât play this game till like 2003 when a friend found a copy of it online, we burned it and âmoddedâ a used Saturn with a piece of scotch-tape to do the disc swap, and then spent several weeks on my front porch playing it. My landlord, a retired plumber who lived in the other half of my duplex, would come out and watch us and just shake his head at them darn kids and their games. He was mostly known for being a chill dude who would read Playboy on his front porch, smoke hand rolled cigs, and then walk in the afternoon to the bar down the street. He got mugged once walking home, which eventually led to his death, which was shit. But he sure thought Radiant Silvergun was some hot shit.
1999 Shenmue
The most amazing game that I needed a 19 year long gap between playthroughs to fully âgetâ. Hinge Problems Game of the Forever. Itâs so great at being a game about not saying what is going on.
There are way too many games that could have been on this list. Only picking one per year was hard! But I enjoyed it as well.
5 Likes
2001
GOTY is Ico I am absolutely all about this game 100%. In a crazy packed year of well known excellent games, this was an easy choice for once. Its playable art. Rare has a game held me so, as this does.
+++
noteable games
Tony Hawkâs Pro Skater 2 for Gameboy Advance Tony Hawk games had never really clicked for me. But for some reason, I had a feeling about this. I read the reviews, they were very good. I went to Wal-Mart intending to buy the frosty blue GBA and probably Tony Hawk. I bought Tony Hawk. Some kid asked if I would show him Tony Hawk, right there in Wal-Mart. Heck yeah I will. So I tear open my frosty blue GBA which I am now touching for the first time. Put in Tony Hawk. Show it to him. âOH MY GOD IâM BUYING THATâ he says, as he teleports away. Oh man its good. I like Tony Hawk way better, as an isometric mix of 2D skateparks and 3D skaters. And the GBA is so comfy, it really allows you to dig into the controls of the game. I donât think Iâd have enjoyed it as much on an SP.
Anachronox one of the few times a western developer tried to make a console style RPG. And its pretty great. They squeezed Quake II engine for all its worth. Lots of personality in the script and characters, the visuals, the music. They werenât just phoning it in. This is a thoughtful sci-fi RPG with a sense of humor.
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec Gran Turismo gets a huge dose of graphics and physics improvements. Arguably one of the most visually arresting PS2 games for some time. And the rallying plays better than GT4, due to physics which I feel are grippier and more realistic. GT4 rally is like ice driving. I love you, Trial Mountain.
Max Payne great narrative with great atmosphere with novel gameplay with great game environments. After MDK2, this was the next time a 3rd person shooter was really good. And Max Payne brought lots of unique flavor.
Devil May Cry a game which changed the industry. Tons of games would go on to include obvious influences from DMC. And games still do (Hello Nioh 2). Any flaws are mostly overshadowed by amazing presentation, intuitive and rad looking gameplay, and a mostly forward pushing pace. Its probably still the 2nd best game in the series.
Halo: Combat Evolved Another industry bender. I didnât own an Xbox. I never really wanted to. and for a long time, remained ambivalent about Halo. However, my friends and I were lucky to have the means to play 16 player local LAN Halo, on a regular basis. Like once a month. and those were fantastic times. And then a little later, my mom remarried. And he had an Xbox. and we played 2-player co-op on the story campaign. and that was pretty great. Even the less good parts were still fun, because its good to play together.
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty the greatest marketing fakeout. That tanker portion of the game is so very good. Awesome new gameplay mechanics. I didnât mind Raiden. But, Big Shell is absolutely worse than The Tanker. They shoulda been hiding out in a watermelon factory. Fortune is rad.
The Typing of The Dead What needs to be said here? is GREAT.
3 Likes
2004 has smt nocturne, snake eater, and katamari
3 Likes
| Year | Game |
|---|---|
| 1980 | Rogue |
| 1981 | Bosconian |
| 1982 | Joust |
| 1983 | Archon |
| 1984 | Tetris |
| 1985 | Ultima IV |
| 1986 | International Karate+ |
| 1987 | Maniac Mansion |
| 1988 | Bubble Bobble |
| 1989 | SimCity |
| 1990 | Mario 3 |
| 1991 | Final Fantasy IV |
| 1992 | Star Control II |
| 1993 | Linkâs Awakening |
| 1994 | Super Metroid |
| 1995 | You Donât Know Jack |
| 1996 | Metal Slug |
| 1997 | Fallout |
| 1998 | Final Fantasy Tactics |
| 1999 | Worms Armageddon |
| 2000 | Tony Hawk 2 |
| 2001 | Ico |
| 2002 | Rez |
| 2003 | F-Zero GX |
| 2004 | MGS3 |
| 2005 | Shadow of the Colossus |
| 2006 | God Hand |
| 2007 | La Mulana |
| 2008 | Mother 3 |
| 2009 | Demonâs Souls |
| 2010 | Dog Days |
| 2011 | Fight Night Champion |
| 2012 | Crusader Kings 2 |
| 2013 | Papers Please |
| 2014 | Divinity Original Sin |
| 2015 | Rainbow Six Siege |
| 2016 | Titanfall 2 |
| 2017 | Resident Evil 7 |
| 2018 | Sprint Vector |
| 2019 | Outer Wilds |
going by north american release dates or localizations wherever applicable
5 Likes
Jeez 1999, added Front Mission 3 and Worms Armageddon.
the 90s are fucking with me imma need time to think
2005 has killer7, sotc, and resident evil 4
2 Likes
they r very impressive years imo
1 Like
sprint vector over Six Ages, Infernium, Celeste, and Kenshi? Really?