CCIV: Game of the Year 1996 Round One

[Neon Ignition]

We move on to the next year and the dawn of the Nintendo 64 era looms upon on now. With the 32-bit era also getting into full swing we see more and more 3D games appear as 2D begins to dry up. But which will win the battle for the next GOTY?


Which of the above games would you say is amongst the best of 1996?

[Asura]

Some great ones here.

Bishi Bashi, because the PS1 version of that is, with a dozen people and beers, the most fun you can have with your clothes on.

Amok, because it used a VoxelSpace engine, and while the definition of "voxels" in the 90s was different to today, that developer deserves recognition for trying out something so technically advanced all the way back then.

But mine goes to Alpine Surfer 2, which took the premise of the original and improved upon it to the point where, adjacent to its sister-title AquaJet, it's in the top tier of that whole era of arcade gaming that also gave us WaveRunner, Hang Pilot, PropCycle and plenty other "cabinet experience" games.

[Hirst]

I suspect on this place Battle Garegga is a safe bet to win!

Alien Trilogy is probably overlooked a lot now with it being from the ancient "no vertical aiming" era of first-person-shooter, but it has a really good atmosphere and spooky soundtrack. It still plays quite well if you can get over the controls. I got the Saturn version on the strength of the demo, decent enough port except the lack of transparencies!

Blast Chamber is widely ignored, but is an excellent multiplayer game (arguably from the outset it isn't really a single player one). It's basically "tig" but with a bomb in a combat arena thing that can be rotated. Me and a mate used to play it loads, it looks rough but it's great fun. Single player not so good, it's more of a puzzler.

[CMcK]

Had to vote for Garegga but gave BattleSport a vote too. Great fun two player arena sports game on the 3DO which was popular with my mates back then.