CCIV: Game of the Year 1996 Round Three

[Neon Ignition]

Time for the next round and we move on with an increase of notable names compared to this point in the 1995 list. How many will make the cut though?


Which of the above games are amongst the best of 1996?

[phillv85]

Duke 3D and FIFA 97 for me. I think 97 is the peak of the series for me before I stopped enjoying them around 2000.

[Asura]

Some standouts here:

Decathlete I'd like to see do well, not just because it's a fantastic game, but I still believe it's the absolute apex of its genre. Don't feel any game has come close. Seriously, Sega really need to do a modern version. The Sonic/Mario games should just plagiarise it.

Enemy Zero is an underrated gem. The game was a barebones Sega Saturn first-person shooter with a feel similar to Alien; however, part of the premise is that the creatures on your ship are invisible to the naked eye, and can only be detected using sonar. Players have to listen for them, and use a makeshift weapon to fight them off. It's something of a survival horror game, very cinematic. Frankly it was the first game I ever played which was genuinely scary; it was clever, because back then, game graphics just couldn't display Dead Space-like enemies (the "Aliens" in Alien Trilogy look like rubber-suited villains from Power Rangers) and it used the Hitchcockian approach where the enemies were always worse in your mind than anything they could put onscreen.

Honestly Enemy Zero is perfectly poised to be a darling game for streamers and YouTubers as one of those "look at this quirky game from years ago" sort of things.

Lastly, I love Die Hard Trilogy for a weird reason. I didn't normally get videogames out of the blue; they were expensive after all. Usually I'd just get something for my birthday or Christmas. However, uncharacteristically while at Makro one year, my parents asked if I wanted to get a Saturn game, and I got Die Hard Trilogy because SSM had reviewed it quite well, and it was like three games in one. Unfortunately, upon getting home, I found that the disc had a manufacturing defect (there was a black dot underneath the transparent layer) and the third game in the collection wouldn't load.

We took it back, but upon getting back to the shop, they had no more copies, and I had to pick something else. By this point, they were having a sale, and I ended up replacing it with two games that summed to the same price - Gungriffon and Guardian Heroes, and these would go on to be two of my favourite videogames of all time.

[fuse]

Hang on, didn't I do my "FX Fighter is good, actually" bit for last year's lot

Also wanting to clarify the 'Death Tank' entry. I never played the original version (the internet says it was hidden in Exhumed?) but Death Tank Zwei in the Saturn port of Duke Nukem 3D is up there as one of my favourite games in that era. Get enough people and the right kit together, and I'd wager you'll have more fun with that than in even Guardian Heroes or 10 player Bomberman.

Honourary mentions to Die Hard Trilogy (just... not the kind of thing anyone would do these days), Shadows over Mystara, and if I'd have had the time to play them I suspect Gun Hazard and Enemy Zero would be here too.

[jonathan_ingram]

Yeah Death Tanks is mighty, I had some version I played loads mid nineties that was on a CD32 cover disk (I was a magnet for the failed mid 90s generation of machines). I think for the Saturn one you needed a save from one/both games Exhumed/DN3D to unlock it.

At the time I'd just got my first PC and was loving Duke Nukem 3D so I had to vote for that. Die Hard Arcade is Ace but I've only played that a bit in recent years, same with Decathlete/Athlete Kings

[Asura]

Also wanting to clarify the 'Death Tank' entry. I never played the original version (the internet says it was hidden in Exhumed?) but Death Tank Zwei in the Saturn port of Duke Nukem 3D is up there as one of my favourite games in that era. Get enough people and the right kit together, and I'd wager you'll have more fun with that than in even Guardian Heroes or 10 player Bomberman.

I'd go for this, also. I too only played Death Tank Zwei but I think they were quite similar. I went to a party once in ~2005 where someone had put it on the TV, with I think 8 pads? Was it 8-player? 6-player? The max number, anyway. Those of us playing ended up playing it most of the night, to absolute raucous laughter; the sort where your cheeks are sore the next day.

To those who never got to play it, from my best recollection, it was a freebie in Exhumed and Duke Nukem 3D for the Saturn (I want to say Quake as well?), and it was kinda like a real-time Worms. You got to choose weapons, then it dropped all of you on the map in random positions. Usually half the field were dead within the first 10 seconds and then the remaining people had to battle it out. Visually it was really basic but that added to the appeal:



It was one of those games where you start playing it, and within 30 seconds, everyone is on their feet and screaming at the television.

[Hirst]

Die Hard Trilogy is a great game, but it has to be said that the lightgun section (Die Harder) is possibly one of the ugliest 3D games you'll ever see. The people look awful.

I'm glad Decathlete/Athlete Kings is getting some respect, it's a simple game but like has been said it is probably the pinnacle of the sports button-basher. Jef Jansens will always be our British Olympic hope.

[Asura]

Die Hard Trilogy is a great game, but it has to be said that the lightgun section (Die Harder) is possibly one of the ugliest 3D games you'll ever see. The people look awful.

Really? I just had a look and it didn't seem particularly bad for the era. Bad in screenshots, but it seems to move okay.

I'm glad Decathlete/Athlete Kings is getting some respect, it's a simple game but like has been said it is probably the pinnacle of the sports button-basher. Jef Jansens will always be our British Olympic hope.

Yep; good to see. There are other good games in the genre; the PS1 Track & Field games were fun, Olympic Gold for the Megadrive was good too - but ultimately, it always comes back to Decathlete for me. It would be perfect if it were 4-player.