Critics Club IV: Game of the Year 1994 Round Six

[Neon Ignition]

We dive into the second half of the years alphabet of releases, moving towards those titles that are more commonly seen on schedules each year. Time to take the next round in with:


Game of the Year 1994: Round Six

[CMcK]

RayForce by a mile from the the options available here. Still one of my go to shmups with a great Saturn port.

[Hirst]

Pizza Tycoon was odd, I got it cheaply in the mid-90s. It was a weird and slightly unbalanced isometric strategy game where you ran a pizza shop chain and could also do things with the mafia and what-not. It had many different parts of the game you could automate and let the game handle it if you didn't want to - like if you didn't want to have to decorate the stores or design the pizzas or whatever. Strangely, it would let you just select to have everything automated and play the entire game for you without intervention.

[phillv85]

Raptor: Call of the Shadows, what a blast from the past! I had the shareware version and ended up buying the full version on GOG years ago.

[Mayhem]

Who voted for RotR?

[Cassius_Smoke]

Who voted for RotR?

Eh... Me.

Ok it's not a good game. But as a kid I was wowed.

[QualityChimp]

Again, voting from the perspective of the games in that year that wowed me, it's all arcade games.
To be fair, Point Blank is timeless. The cartoon graphics never age in the way that Time Crisis or Virtua Cop have and it's still a brilliant thrill to play and replay the levels. In fact, I played it at NQ64 earlier this year and it's still great, especially in 2-player.

I also voted for Puzzle Bobble, which is also still a lovely game. Seeing Bub and Bob was enough to intrigue you and the puzzle element was enough to keep you playing. It's no Tetris and getting an amazing shot feels more like luck than judgement (for me, anyway!), but it's great when you clear a ton of bubbles!

Finally, one that probably has aged the most is The Ninja Warriors , but still has a place in my heart.

I remember, as a kid, first seeing the arcade cab.
There are a few cabs that stick in the mind, usually driving/flying games, but there are a few cabs that had a real wow-factor.
Tron with its neon, Gauntlet with its big 4-player board, TMNT screaming out the theme and a few others, but that Ninja Warriors cab was like unlike anything I'd seen before.

Using a clever system of three screens reflected into an overlapping central widescreen play area, you had this amazingly cinematic action going on. On one side, soldiers and dogs were running at you, on the other a goddamn tank was trundling towards you and in the middle, your badass ninja, throwing kunai daggers, doing flips with her hair trailing behind and slashing every damn thing they come across.

It was also crystal sharp, too. Some cabs had that CRT blur and some were really sharp (like Midways' Temple of Doom), but this looked great as the visceral splashes of blood flew about and the graffiti and billboards decorated the opening stage.

But wait! Your ninja has taken a few hits and I can see something glinting?
Holy smokes, I'm not just a ninja, I'm a NINJA ROBOT!

Yes, it's aged. Yes, it's pretty basic and bloody tough, but it's one of those games that will make me zip back in my memories to happy summer days in the arcades on seaside holidays.

[Neon Ignition]

Puzzle Bobble is a rare example where I think the spin-off trumps the original