Critics Club: Game of the Year 1994 Round Five

[Neon Ignition]

We're into the fifth round and not even halfway through the alphabet of game releases yet which shows how much release schedules had ballooned since the 80's era. Here are another 60 games but which will you vote through and why?


Game of the Year 1994: Round Five

[Neon Ignition]

KOF94, easily. Such a successfully marrying of the SNK franchises

[QualityChimp]

I'm trying to vote on what wowed me at the time and it was definitely Micro Machines 2 and Madden 95.

Although MMV3 is better, the extra joypad ports in the MD cart was genius!

A mate visited me at uni and we hammered Madden 95. We almost didn't go out as we tried to Hail Mary pass each other.

[CMcK]

Monster World 4 is so good. And I really enjoyed Need for Speed on the 3DO.

[fuse]

Kind of cheating a bit here, not only voting for multiple entries, but also going for one I've technically not played. I only played Live a Live recently, and it was the remake rather than this original, but by 'eck I like it.

Almost voted for King's Quest VII too, until I looked at some images from it and remembered that it was actually KQVI that I played and liked. VII is the one where they went for slightly more cartoon-y graphics, and I only ever bothered with the demo.

No doubts about KoF '94 though. I have definitely played that and it definitely kicks arse.

[Hirst]

The Need for Speed is an incredibly good racing game, even though really all it does is take the Test Drive formula. It's a shame the series only went downhill from there - it is the only one in their entire massive library I truly love. Dodging through traffic in the dashboard view and risking your life by overtaking on the wrong side of the road on a hill - amazing.

[teddymeow]

KOF '94 is astounding but I wasn't aware of it BITD.

Micro Machines 2, however, that was a sleepover favourite of my schoolmates and I for ages!!!

[dataDave]

KoF didn't gel with me until '96. I had '95 on the Saturn and played it a ton, but that's only because they forced me to.

I certainly can't play '94 now. I remember really looking forward to giving it a shot, but when I finally played it it wasn't good enough to suck any more of my money up, especially not when SSF2T was in the same room.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Thing with KoF is once youve played 98 you can't play any others.

[mjbrooky]

Micro machines 2 - what a blast that was. 4 player mayhem such a laugh. Is there anything of a similar top down racer vein on the switch? I loved turbo tournament and wouldn’t mind giving something similar a go.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Thing with KoF is once youve played 98 you can't play any others.

I have no qualms with '98 being the best KoF game, but I still go back to '95 as it was the KoF game that I played the most by far.

[Neon Ignition]

I kind of like the air of 95, weirdly 95 is the one that I played most back in the day but it's the least likely one I'd revisit of the 90's entries bar 99. I have a real soft spot for 96 and 97 whilst I never got into the love for 98 the same as others.

[Mayhem]

KOF '94 is astounding but I wasn't aware of it BITD.

I was, one of the guys I was flat sharing with my third year of university had a NeoGeo CD unit and several games including this. Also a SFC, one of the disk units and skyscraper piles of disks with pirate copied ROMs.

[Asura]

Ooh, some good ones there.

King of Fighters '94, certainly. Personally I feel it only really got in gear with '95 but it was still a great game.

Also, wanted to call out the two Metaltech titles. Something tells me these are not widely remembered, but I loved the entire franchise - Earthsiege, Battledrome, Earthsiege 2, Starsiege, Tribes, Tribes 2, Tribes Vengeance and Tribes Ascend. Fair to say these were Battletech knock-offs (the entire franchise was, to a greater or lesser degree) but the games themselves were a worthy adversary to Activision's Mechwarrior games and while it seems the magazines and message boards were filled with people who professed to love one and pour scorn on the other, I played both series and liked them for different reasons.